The gelechid bud borer Anarsia achrasella (Latreille) has become an increasingly serious pest of sapodilla Manilkara zapota Van Royen in India. The objective of the present study was to estimate the pest damage potential and determine the influence of abiotic factors and plant phenology on the pest incidence. The results indicate that each larva of A. achrasella could damage up to 36.9–46.6 buds before reaching pupation. Correlation analysis indicates that the pest incidence is not influenced by plant phenology and that the effect of abiotic factors is minimal. Of all weather parameters studied, only minimum temperature and wind speed correlated significantly with bud borer infestation. The linear and non-linear analyses showed that, in the case of minimum temperature, polynomial model order (2) Y=0.4108x2−11.95x+92.329 was found to explain 46% of the variability in bud borer incidence. However, in the case of wind speed, none of the tried models could explain variability in A. achrasella incidence beyond 53%. The implications of these results are discussed.
