Insect’s Diversity of Capsicum Annuum L. (Solanaceae) and Damage Due to Cryptophlebia Leucotreta (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) on Fruits

Capsicum annuum (pepper) is a vegetable plant whose fruits are used as spices or condiments and present in many African dishes. This crop is subject to numerous attacks by insect pests causing significant damage to crops despite the use of various means of control which negatively affect the environment and cause significant damage to the health of the producer. Very often, market gardeners do not have a good knowledge of the different varieties likely to increase their production. In order to increase the yield of this crop, this study is a contribution to the knowledge of the resistance of certain varieties of C. annuum to pests. It was carried out from May to September 2019 on an experimental plot set up for this purpose within the campus of the Higher Teacher Training College of the University of Yaoundé I. This study allowed us to inventory and compare the associated entomofauna to the red and yellow varieties of C. annuum. To do this, we carried out sampling, inventories and direct field observations of the entomofauna and their activity. Following this study, we noted that the entomofauna was quite diversified. The number of insect orders was 06 for the yellow variety and 05 for the red variety. On yellow pepper, the Coleoptera order presented the highest abundances with 42.85% of all individuals, followed by Hemiptera (22.45%) and Orthoptera (20.81%). On red pepper, the Coleoptera order presented the highest abundances with 45.71% of all individuals, followed by Diptera (28.57%), and Orthoptera (14.29%). The analysis of the variation of the average abundances of the pests on the two varieties of pepper revealed that the phenology influences on this one. Indeed, during flowering, the orders of Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hemiptera were the most represented with respectively 13 individuals (i.e. 46.42% of all individuals), 06 individuals (i.e. 21.42%) and 05 individuals (i.e. 17.85%) for the yellow pepper while at the flowering-fruiting stage, the Coleoptera and Diptera orders were the most represented with respectively 08 individuals (i.e. 44.44% of all individuals) and 07 individuals (i.e. 38.88%) for the Red pepper. The yellow pepper produced a total of 28 individuals at the flowering stage (i.e. 57.14% of the orders combined) and the red pepper 18 individuals at the flowering-fruiting stage (i.e. 51.42% of the orders combined). The attack rates on fruits due to Cryptophlebia leucotreta presented significant differences from one variety of pepper to another with higher values on the yellow pepper at the third harvest (P=0.01; F=6.83), fourth harvest (P=0.001; F=44.67) and at the fifth harvest (P=0.003; F=4.43) with respectively average rates of 13.9±3.2% (N=49); 35.33±3.90% (N=110) and 24.76±8.62% (N=23).