How to control mango hopper in mango (aam) orchard?

Tap a panicle over a white cloth or your palm early in the morning and you will see the hoppers jump. That simple check tells me whether the population is rising before I decide to spray. No point spraying on a calendar if they are not there yet.

The sooty mould is the give-away. Once the leaves below the panicles go black and sticky, the hoppers have been at work for a while. Opening up my dense old trees by pruning made spraying far more effective because the spray actually reached inside the canopy.

In our Andhra orchards the hopper pressure is heavy at flowering. Rotating chemical groups is the only thing that kept them controllable, because they built resistance fast when we repeated one product. Ask your local university which groups to alternate this season.

Please mind the bees at full bloom. I spray in the late evening when bee activity is low and avoid the peak flowering window for harsh insecticides where I can. Poor pollination from killing pollinators can cost you more than the hopper does.

Coverage of the panicle and tender shoots is everything. The hoppers sit on the new growth, so a quick light spray over the top does little. I slow down and cover the panicles properly and get a much better result.

If your fruit is going for export, keep a careful spray record with dates, products, and PHI, and stop sprays well before harvest as per label. Residue rejection at the pack-house is an expensive lesson. Cultural control and monitoring let me spray less overall.