International Journal of Horticulture, 2024, Vol.14, No.4, 223-236 http://hortherbpublisher.com/index.php/ijh 223 Research Article Open Access Control Strategies of American Leaf Miner (Tuta absoluta) (Meyrick) Adopted by Farmers in Lalitpur District, Nepal Sapana Acharya 1 , Shraddha Gotame Sunar 1, Roshan Khanal 1, Suruchi Aryal 1, Dikshya Subedi 2, Santosh Marahatta 3, Roshan Ghimire1 1 Faculty of Agriculture, Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU), Rampur, Chitwan, 44100, Nepal 2 Department of Agri Botany and Conservation Ecology, Faculty of Agriculture, Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU), Rampur, Chitwan, 44100, Nepal 3 Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU), Rampur, Chitwan, 44100, Nepal Corresponding author: sapanaacharya59@gmail.com International Journal of Horticulture, 2024, Vol.14, No.4 doi: 10.5376/ijh.2024.14.0025 Received: 04 Jun., 2024 Accepted: 15 Jul., 2024 Published: 13 Aug., 2024 Copyright © 2024 Acharya et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Acharya S., Sunar S.G., Khanal R., Aryal S., Subedi D., Marahatta S., and Ghimire R., 2024, Control strategies of American leaf miner (Tuta absoluta) (Meyrick) adopted by farmers in Lalitpur District, Nepal, International Journal of Horticulture, 14(4): 223-236 (doi: 10.5376/ijh.2024.14.0025) Abstract This study evaluates the control strategies adopted by vegetable farmers in Lalitpur, Nepal, to combat Tuta absoluta during April-May 2023. Five wards in Godawari municipality were selected due to the significant infestation of Tuta absoluta. A total of 70 households were chosen through random sampling. Data collection methods included pre-tested interviews, Focus Group Discussions, and Key Informant Surveys for primary information, while secondary information was obtained from relevant publications. The primary vegetables grown were tomato, potato, cauliflower, cabbage, and onion. Farmers faced major issues with diseases and pests, particularly blight and Tuta absoluta, which caused yield losses up to 90%, with an average loss of 56%. While 35.7% of farmers used chemical pesticides, 71.4% relied on botanical pesticides and cultural methods. Among control measures, botanical methods were rated most effective with a relative index of 0.933. The study highlights the pressing need for integrated pest management training, as only 25.7% of farmers had received it, and underscores the significance of botanical methods in managing Tuta absolutaeffectively. Keywords Biopesticides; Pest control strategies; Tuta absolutacontrol; Vegetable 1 Introduction For the majority of the population (almost 65%) in Nepal agriculture is the major source of livelihood, which contributes 23.95% in GDP (MoALD, 2022, https://moald.gov.np/). Horticultural crops have a major role in sustaining Agricultural Gross Domestic Product (AGDP) of Nepal. Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) belongs to the family Solanaceae, which is a widely grown vegetable in the world as well as in Nepal. In the mid hills of Nepal, it is grown in two seasons – spring and rainy whereas in terai it is grown in winter season. Tomatoes can help improve the economic standard of subsistence farmers by comparatively high returns compared to low returns cereal crops. Its demand in the market is increasing day by day. Tomato is also known as poor man’s orange, which is rich in vitamin C, calcium, folate, protein, minerals and antioxidants. Tomatoes are threatened by various pests and diseases such as thrips, aphids, mealy bug, leaf miners, tomato worms, leafhoppers and early leaf blight, late blight, fruit rot, Septoria leaf spot, anthracnose etc. respectively. Tomato leaf miner Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (gelechiidae) is one of the dangerous pests of tomato native to South America (Michereff Filho et al., 2000). Despite being near to the capital of the country, the availability of inputs such as fertilizers, seeds and required chemicals are not in time, which causes the limitation in production of vegetables including tomato in Lele, Bisankhunarayan and Chapagau village of Lalitpur district. The major causes of limiting production are unavailability of inputs in time, irrigation problems in winter, middle man involvement in the value chain, various pests and disease, biotic and abiotic stresses. Among the various causes the occurrence of pests, especially Tuta absoluta, is one of the major problems to reduce quality and quantity of tomato production of tomato (Upreti et al., 2020). Field observation shows that farmers have been using different preventive measures like pheromone traps,
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