author(s)
AK Choudhary, Pawan K Amrate and A Chatterjee

abstract
An experiment to know the influence of meteorological factors and relation of moth capture in pheromone traps on field infestation of early shoot borer, Chilo infescatellus (Sneller) in sugarcane was conducted at Zonal Agricultural Research Station, Powarkheda, Hoshangabad during 2009 to 2012. Early shoot borer activity was started and ceased during 6th to 10th and 25th to 27th standard meteorological week, respectively. Whereas the highest (25.20%) and lowest (17.20%) cumulative infestation were observed in 2012 and 2010, respectively. The elevated maximum temperature and low humidity (morning and evening) were possibly contributed for lowest field infestation of early shoot borer. The data of field infestation (%), moth captures at pheromone traps and meteorological factors (SMW wise) were also subjected to multiple regression analysis. Out of the six regression combinations, the meteorological parameters of 2 weeks prior (r2=0.8999) had the maximum impact on early shoot borer field population, followed by the parameters of one week prior (r2=0.8820) and the same week (r2= 0.8698). The maximum (41OC) and minimum (19OC) temperature, relative humidity of morning (67%) and evening (21%) with no rain coincide with pheromone trap catch (0.49 moths day-1 trap-1) were found to be involved in peak activity of early shoot borer after two weeks.