Red cotton bug and red silk cotton trees

Red cotton bug is serious pest of red silk cotton trees. The nymphs and adults feed on emerging bolls and seeds of cotton family/malvacae and reduce the germination capacity of seeds. 

I hunted some okra looking seeds of red silk cotton tree/semal at a park in Gurgaon in the June beginning when trees were at the fag end of fruiting and found heavy infestation of semal bug all across the park. Bugs were feeding and breeding on the fallen pods/balls of semal tree. 

For more information of tree, click and read down below link

https://www.tntreepedia.com/tree-details/?id=1e30a57411f83859ed44beb8c5edd40a

Controlling red-pumpkin-beetle infestation organically

Red-pumpkin-beetles are voracious eaters of cucurbits and munch newly germinated 2-4 leaves stage cucurbits just in no time before you witness the economical demage. They love eating melons and gourds.

Taming them is not rocket-science or you do not need to lead the chemical war, few cultural methods and management practices will keep them at bay. Don't panic, handle them peacefully and they really look charming by the way, right!!! You simply need to understand their behavior. Once you get to know, taming them is not really tough-game.

Their grubs remain in soil and start eating as cucurbits start germinated in the very early stage. They really relish the taste of all cucurbits except bitter-gourd. They might be not suffered from diabetes unlike human that they do not like eating bitter-gourd!!.

Few strategies to tame them

1. Sprinkle ash (dung ash/soft-wood ash) on germinated plants.  
2. Soil solarization in hot-months to kill the grubs in soil.
3. Spray neem oil as precautionary method once in 3-5 days interval. 
4. Manual collection and destructing them by putting under the soil in early stage.
5. Germinate seed ex-situ in nursery and transplant. Once plant start growing they don't feed much and plant has mechanism to bear the damage.