Population density of some insect pests infesting globe artichoke plantations in relation to certain ecological factors at dakahalia governorate

Field experiments were conducted at Dakahlia Governorate during two successive seasons 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 to study the population density of some insect pests infesting globe artichoke plantations namely Capitophorus horni Born, Empoasca discipiens Poali, Autographa gamma Linn. and Spodoptera littoralis (Biosd). Also the effect of certain weather factors (daily mean temperatures and daily mean R.H.) and plant age were studied on the population dynamics of the various insect pests. The weather factors and plant age had insignificant effect on the population density of C. horni, E. discipiens, A. gamma and S. littoralis. Also, the relative humidity had shown significant effect on population density of the four insect pests during the two seasons 2007/2008 and 2008/2009. The percentage of explained variance was 92.5 86.5 during the two successive seasons, respectively.