ECOFRIENDLY TECHNOLOGY FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF BRINJAL PEST USING REDUVIIDS Bibin.G.Anand, 1 Fathima Rizwana A. 2 Prakash S 3 1 Udaya School of Engineering, Vellamodi, K.K dist E-mail:bibin_g_anand@yahoo.co.in Abstract Eco-friendly technology nowadays is an important event to maintain the pollutant free and safe environment. Such condition to certain extent may be provided by the predatory insects namely the reduviids .They act as bio-control agents on insect pests and play an effective role in eco-friendly technology. To prove reduviids as effective bio control agent on insect pest, the functional response experiment was carried out in the pest of Solanum melongena Linn (brinjal) the Pterophorus lienigianus (Z) in a brinjal agro ecosystem, using the reduviid predators Rhynocoris fuscipes (Fabricius) and Endocus inornatus (Stal).The number of prey was kept constant through out the experimental period.“Disc”equation of Holling (1959) Y a Tt by x was used to describe the functional response of both predators. Study on the functional response in R. fuscipes and E. inornatus suggested that both were capable of suppressing the pest population by killing more number of pests. Hence they could be mass cultured and effectively employed as bio control agent for suppressing the pest population of brinjal. Managing the pest by using natural predators will minimize the usage of pesticides, and make the environment free from toxic pollutant. Keywords: Pollllution reduviids, Solanum Melongena Linn, Endocus Inornaths I. INTRODUCTION Biological control bypredators such as assassin bugs help in the regulation of insect pest population in Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Biological control refers to the regulatory action of parasites, predators or pathogens to maintain the density of an organism (pest) at a lower level than would occur without these natural enemies. Reduviids are exclusivelypredatory mostly on insect pests. They have good searching ability, a high degree of host specificity and higher reproductive capacity and are amenable to mass culture . They attack a greater number of prey at higher prey density than at a lower prey density(Mc Mahan, ,1983). Since they are specific, safer to non target species, beneficial insects of higher animals and man and have the least effect on the ecosystem, they have been used as highly successful group of bio control agent in Insect Pest Management to maintain an eco-friendly environment. R.fuscipes and E. inornatus the entomosuccivorous, polyphagous, crepuscular, assassin bugs are excellent predators predominantly found in agro ecosystems in India. They are the potent bio control predator of insect pests such as Spodoptera litura Fabricius, Helicoverpa armigera Hubner, Mylabris pustulata Thunberg, Dysdercus cingulatus Fabricius, and Achaea janata Linnaeus (Ambrose, 1996). However there is no report available on the eco-friendly technology of R. fuscipes and E. inornatus in the brinjal pest. Hence an attempt was made to asses the eco-friendly technology for the management of brinjal pest by way of studying the prey consumption in relation to prey density (functional response) of R. fuscipes and E. inornatus on P. lienigianus - the pest of S melongena. II. MATERIALS AND METHOD The laboratory raised adult females of R. fuscipes and E. inornatus starved for 24 hours were used in this experiment. The functional response experiments were performed in the infested S.melongena agro ecosystem at Vellamodi village, in kanyakumari district of Tamilnadu. In field trials on functional response, one female predator of each species was allowed on the branches of infested brinjal and covered over by synthetic net material. The prey was also within the net cover. The branches were selected in such a way that the particular portion of the branch had 1,2,4,8 or 16 rolled leaves containing an equivalent number of cater pillars of the P.lienigianus. The rolled leaves were slightly opened exposing the pest partially enabling the predator to track the prey easily. Thus, five different categories of experimental setup with five different prey levels were maintained International Journal on Applied Bioengineering, Vol. 4, No.2, July 2010 15