Occurrence of granulovirus infecting Cydia pomonella in high altitude cold arid region of India

Codling moth (Cydia pomonella, Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) is a quarantine pest of apple in Ladakh, India. We report Cydia pomonella granulovirus from infected larvae of codling moth for the first time in India. The two CpGV isolates were identified as (CpGV SKUAST-1 and CpGV SKUAST-2) and published in Genbank under accession number, MK801791 and MK801792, respectively. The mortality of CpGV was evaluated against 3rd instar larvae of codling moth at various concentrations viz., 10², 10⁴, 10⁶, 10⁸, 10¹⁰, 10¹² and 10¹⁴ OB_S/ml. The median lethal concentrations (LC₅₀ and LC₉₀) were observed at 7.08 and 28.56 OB_S/ml, respectively. In field, the infection rate by CpGV was 5.95 to 15.65%. Based on typical infection symptoms on the larvae, morphological features under the microscope and sequence results of the amplified product confirmed the first occurrence of CpGV from India. Thus, CpGV will form an important non-chemical strategy for managing this pest.