author(s)
Kamal Kishor, Bhabani Mahankuda and Ruchira Tiwari

abstract
A bioassay study was conducted on the effect of cow dung smoke on mortality of pulse beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis (Linn.) and on quality parameters of stored pulse commodities viz. mung bean, urd bean, chickpea and pigeonpea under laboratory conditions in the Department of Entomology, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand during 2018. The results showed that more than 50 per cent insect mortality was observed on pulse seeds after 96h to 120 h of exposure to cow dung smoke whereas without smoke the overall mean mortality of pulse beetles was 2.22, 4.99, 6.94 and 11.38 after 48, 72 h 96h and 120h, respectively of insects confinement under airtight conditions on different pulse commodities. The data clearly showed that the overall mean mortality of pulse beetle on different stored pulses was increased to four times with smoke treatments at different intervals of exposure periods. On the other hand, cow dung smoke had no adverse effect on different quality parameters of seeds after different exposure periods which depicted that the overall mean germination of pulse commodities was not affected by smoke exposure from 1h to 120h of a time interval as it was ranged from 85.83 to 87.91 with germination index (7.35 to 7.53), root length (13.20cm to 14.23cm), shoot length (12.81 to 13.75), vigour index (2289.11 to 2429.66 ), significance of viability (0.97 to 0.99) which was quite similar to the overall mean values per cent germination (87.91) germination index (7.53), root length (13.80cm), shoot length (13.75cm), vigour index (2423.33) and significance of viability (1.00) as observed in untreated pulses commodities. Therefore, the present study revealed that cow dung smoke was found lethal to pulse beetle but has no deleterious effects on seed quality of pulse commodities under storage conditions.