**1. Introduction**

Crops belonging to the family Cucurbitaceae are commonly called cucurbits, which include more than 120 genera and 1000 species distributed in tropical and subtropical areas. Cucurbits are tropical in origin and grown mostly in Africa, tropical America, and Asia, mainly Southeast Asia. Cucurbits are a large group that include cucumber, bitter gourd, squash, bottle gourd, ridge gourd, snake gourd, watermelon, muskmelon and pumpkin. Most of the gourds and squashes are commonly used for cooking while cucumber is used for salads and pickles. Watermelon and muskmelon are taken as fruits and wax gourd is prepared as biscuits and jam. The cucurbits are beneficial for human health as their fruits help in purification of blood, boost energy level, improve digestion in the body and remove constipation. *Benincasa hispida* a member of cucurbitaceae family contains volatile oils, uronic acid, carotenes, flavonoids, ß-sitosterin and glycosides which are of pharmaceutical importance [1]. The major phytochemical present in cucurbits is a terpenoid substance known as Cucurbitacins.

Most cucurbit species is believed to have an African origin. However, cucumber have originated from the foothills of the Himalayas. There the closely related wild species *C. hardwickii Royle* still exists. In India, the cucumber was already being cultivated 3000 years ago, in the 6th century, cucumber was cultivated in China and now it is cultivated worldwide. Immature fruits of cucumber are used as salad vegetable and for pickles. Cucumber and other cucurbit fruits are generally fat-free and low in sodium content. Cucumber is an annual crop and a climbing herb. Its growth development duration can last 12–13 months in favourable conditions.

In present scenario, a significant constraint in the sustainable production and productivity of cucurbits is mainly due to attack of various insect-pests which are responsible for adversely affecting the qualitative and qualitative yield. A wide range of pest complex has been noticed infesting the cucurbits. This chapter joins all the information and provide overall review about the major insect pest of cucumber and other cucurbits, and different IPM measures like monitoring, cultural methods, host resistance, biological control method, use of botanicals as biopesticide and at last use of less hazardous chemical control methods recommended for management of this pest.

#### **1.1 Melon fruit fly***, Bactrocera cucurbitae* **(coquillett)**

*Bactrocera cucurbitae* is a yellowish brown coloured dipteran fly and commonly known as melon fruit fly. It is native to India and is wildly distributed in tropical, subtropical and temperate region of the world [2]. Melon fruit fly attacks about 125 species of plants, mainly cucurbits, viz. gourds, cucumber, pumpkin, squash and other vegetables like tomato, green beans, egg plants etc. The female adult with the help of its sharp and hard ovipositor, punctures the soft and tender fruits and lays eggs just below the fruits's epidermis. After hatching, the maggots start feeding inside the pulp of fruits. A water soaked appearance of fruits develops as a result of larval feeding, these punctures and feeding tunnels provide entry points for various bacteria and fungi and result of this, the infested fruit start rotting, distorted and malformed fruits from plants pre-maturely. About 1000 white colour eggs in the batches of 1–40 slender (2 mm long) are laid by a single female. Dirty white coloured apodous maggots are cylindrical, elongate (7-12 cm). The maggot developmental period is 3 to 21 days depending on the temperature and host. Pupation occurs in the soil at the depth of 0.5 to 15 cm, pupal period is about 7–13 days depending on host and temperature. Adults are long lived about 150 days [3]. Melon fruit fly can cause devastating fruit damage up to 100% in all cucurbits [4].

#### *1.1.1 Management*

Cucurbits fruits are picked up at small intervals for marketing and self-consumption for that reason we cannot rely on insecticide for control of this pest but under severe infestation, it is important to use low residual toxic insecticides with short waiting periods. Therefore in keeping view the importance of crop and this pest different strategy should be used for the management of fruit fly as follows.

#### *1.1.1.1 Local area management*

Local area management is the minimum scale of pest management over a restricted area l, which has no natural protection against reinvasion. Here the major objective is to suppress the pest, rather than to eradicate it. The strategies

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*Integrated Pest Management for Cucurbits in Cucumber (*Cucumis sativus *L.)*

*1.1.1.2 Monitoring and management with cue/pheromone lures*

includes bagging of fruits, field sanitation, protein baits and cue-lure traps, host plant resistance, biological control, and soft insecticides, can be employed to avoid

For the monitoring of fruit flies, the sex attractant cue-lure traps are more effective than the food attractant tephritlure traps. and cue-lure and methyl eugenol traps have been used to attract males for monitoring and mass trapping [5, 6]. *Ocimum sanctum* as the border crop sprayed with protein bait containing spinosad as a toxicant found effective in management of this pest [7]. A variety of commercially produced attractants (cuelure ®, Eugelure®, Flycide®) are available in the market and can be used efficiently in management of this pest. For trapping male flies, installation of old used water bottle baited with cue-lure saturated wood blocks (ethanol/ cue-lure/carbaryl in a ratio 8:1:2) at 25 traps/ha prior to flower initiation is quite effective. Use of NSKE 4% as a repellent can enhance trapping and luring in bait spots. Use of neem as a repellent enhanced the catch in parapheromone traps and increased the luring ability of para-pheromone by 52%. Although, along with repellents and bait spray, other operations like removal and destruction

of maggots in early infested fruits and field sanitation must be adopted.

done on maize during the evening hours to kill adult fruit flies.

Field sanitation is most effective method in melon fruit fly management. It should be done for minimising pest intensity and to break reproduction cycle by removal and destruction of infested fruits daily from the field and bury the damaged fruits 0.46 m deep into the soil [8]. Akhtaruzzaman et al. [9] recommended bagging of cucumber fruits after 3 days of anthesis and bag should be kept for 5 days for effective control. Bagging of 3–4 cm long fruits with two layers of paper bags reduces fruit fly infestation and enhances the net returns by 40–58% [10]. 2–3 rows of maize as a trap crop can be grown between the cucurbits, which can be used as a resting site by the adult fruit fly. Spraying of any contact insecticides can be

Srinivasan [11] reported *Opius fletcheri* Silv. to be a dominant parasitoid of *B. cucurbitae.* The parasitization of *B. cucurbitae* by *O. flatcheri* has been reported to vary from 0.2 to 1.9% in *M. charantia* [12]. In the IPM program of *B. cucurbitae* at Hawaii, a new parasitoid, *Fopius arisanus* has been included [13]. A nematode, *Steinernema carpocapsae* Weiser *(Neoaplectana carpocapsae),* has been found to cause 0–86% mortality to melon fruit fly after 6 days exposure [14]. The culture filtrate of the fungus, *Rhizoctonia solani* Kuhn, act as an effective bio-agent against maggots [15], and the fungus*, Gliocladium virens* Origen, has been found to be an effective against adult flies [16]. Oviposition and development of *B. cucurbitae* adversely affected by culture filtrates of the fungi *R. solani, Trichoderma viridae*

Host plant resistance is an important element in IPM programs It is an important component in IPM programs. It does not cause any negative impact to the environment. The success in developing high yielding and melon fruit fly-resistant varieties

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97123*

environmental and health hazard [4].

*1.1.1.3 Cultural methods*

*1.1.1.4 Biological control*

Pers., and *G. virens* [17].

*1.1.1.5 Host plant resistance*

#### *Integrated Pest Management for Cucurbits in Cucumber (*Cucumis sativus *L.) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97123*

includes bagging of fruits, field sanitation, protein baits and cue-lure traps, host plant resistance, biological control, and soft insecticides, can be employed to avoid environmental and health hazard [4].
