Keywords: Brinjal fruit and shoot borer, physical barrier, shoot clipping, NPV, margosom

An experiment was conducted at IAAS, Rampur, Chitwan to evaluate eco-friendly management practices of brinjal fruit and shoot borer, Leucinodes orbonalis Guenee. Field experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications and five treatments, viz 1) physical barrier (nylon net); 2) shoot clipping weekly; 3) physical barrier + shoot clipping; 4) NPV ( 100 LE 1 ml/lit) + margosom (0.05 azadiractin 5 ml/lit) weekly spray; and 5) untreated control. Each plot consisted of 6 m x 5.4 m (32.4 m²) with 72 plants (spacing RR 75 cm x PP 60 cm). Field experiment revealed that all treatments except clipping in open field were significantly different from the untreated control on shoot damage, fruit infestation by number, fruit infestation by weight and marketable yield. The highest marketable fruit yield (10.68±4.30 mt/ha) was harvested from barrier + clipping plots followed by barrier (10.29±1.10 mt/ha), NPV + margosom (6.13±2.10 mt/ha) and untreated control (5.35±1.10 mt/ha). The marketable yield increment over untreated control was the highest in barrier + clipping (44%), barrier + clipping (20%), barrier (17%), NPV + margosom (16%) and clipping (8%). Barrier + clipping had the lowest shoot damage (0.91±0.57%) followed by barrier alone (1.33±0.41%) and the shoot damage in other treatments like shoot clipping, untreated control, and NPV + margosom was 2.31± 0.68%, 2.41±0.54% and 3.42±0.81%, respectively. Similarly, fruit infestation both in terms of number and weight of fruit was the lowest in barrier + clipping (15.00±5.7 and 14.10 ±3.5%) followed by barrier (17.10±3.13 and 15.8±4.25%), NPV + margosom (34.51 ±1.76 and 31.62±2.64%), clipping (38.00 ± 8.73 and 42.0 ± 4373%) and untreated control (42.30 ± 4.56 and 43.57 ± 8.9%), respectively. The natural parasitism of L. orbonalis population reached an average of 23.33% by a hymenopterous parasite during May-June. All treatments are eco-friendly and barrier + clipping is the best for farmers' practice in small scale production, especially for of-season, but it's recommendation in commercial scale requires further verification under farmers' field condition. All eco-friendly practices tested for the management of L. orbonalis prevent ecological hazards like with insecticides; they rather promote regulation of insect population and natural balance with long term advantage.