THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF DAMAGE BY THE BROWN SLUG, FILICAULIS ALTE FERUSSAC, TO SOME VEGETABLE CROPS IN BARNALA AND SANGRUR DISTRICTS, PUNJAB

The brown slugs, Filicaulis alte Ferussac, were found damaging vegetable crops in Punjab. Two villages viz; Bhadalwad and Sanghera of district Barnala and one village i.e. Dasaunda Singh Wala of district Sangrur were surveyed. Damage to the vegetable sapling and irregular holes in leaf lamina were observed however, no fruit damage was observed in all the three villages. In Bhadalwad and Dasaunda Singh Wala, highest damage was observed in cauliflower at 6-leaf stage during October (25.03%) and at 4-leaf stage during September (26.58%) respectively whereas in Sanghera field turnip was the most affected crop at 2-leaf stage (22.98%). The study revealed broccoli as the least affected crop in Bhadalwad, Sanghera at 6- leaf stage and Dasaunda Singh Wala at 2- leaf stage with mean percent of damage 17.11, 19.06 and 17.57 respectively. Maximum leaf damage was observed in cabbage in all the three villages during the month of November. Arvi crop was most affected at 4- leaf stage in the month of March to first week of April. Arvi leaves are most affected in Bhadalwad out of three villages during the month of May. Maximum damage was observed in September to first week of October and in March to April, due to optimum temperature and moisture conditions for slug activity on surface. Other factors like height of crop plants, growth stage of the crop and shade availability had direct bearing on the pest incidence.