author(s)
SY Wankhede, SB Kharbade, VA Sthool, AA Shaikh, JD Jadhav, SN Hasabnis and Rajkumar Bajolage

abstract
The correlation between weather parameter and population of tobacco leaf eating caterpillar, Spodoptera litura (Fab.) larva (mrl^-1) on different groundnut varieties at different sowing windows and forewarning models for prediction of population of tobacco leaf eating caterpillar, Spodoptera litura (Fab.) during kharif season, 2017 and 2018. The experiment was laid out in split plot design with three replications. The treatment comprised of four varieties viz., V₁: JL-501, V₂: RHRG-6083 (Phule Unnati), V₃: TAG-24 and V₄: JL-776 (Phule Bharati) as main plot and four sowing windows viz., S₁: 25^rd MW (18^th to 24^th June), S₂: 26^th MW (25^th June to 01^st July), S­₃: 27^th MW (2^nd to 8^th July) and S₄: 28^th MW (09^th to 15^th July) as sub plot treatments. The correlation of weather parameters with incidence of Spodoptera litura showed that the population of Spodoptera litura was found to have significant and positive correlation with evening relative humidity whereas maximum temperature and rainfall showed negative correlation with seasonal incidence of Spodoptera litura. Prediction of Spodoptera litura populations in different sowing window based on regression equations (R²) 72 to 83 per cent validation based on different weather parameters for variety JL-501, (R²) 66 to 85 per cent validation based on different weather parameter for variety RHRG-6083, (R²) 71 to 87 per cent validation based on different weather parameter for variety TAG-24 and (R²) 69 to 84 per cent validation based on different weather parameter for variety JL-776 for the prediction of Spodoptera litura population.