Mealy bugs are destructive to citrus causing severe losses in Peninsular and North-Eastern India. Apart from citrus, mealy bugs attack curry leaf plant, cotton, banana, coffee, cocoa, ginger, mango etc. The citrus plants of all the ages even the pruned young citrus seedlings in cage house and nursery besides grown-up trees are attacked by mealy bugs. Besides arresting the plant growth it also causes leaf and fruit drop. Various methods of control like mechanical, cultural, chemical, biological and use of pheromones and IGR's which have been tried against the pest world over have been reviewed in this article. Development of forecasting models, working out ETL levels (location and species-wise), correlation of weather parameters with population dynamics etc. have been visualized as the future research strategies.
