Sunn Pest - Sunn Pest Research

Sunn Pest Research

A cooperative program between the University of Vermont Entomology Research Laboratory and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), in Aleppo, Syria was initiated in 1997. Several strains of entomopathogenic fungi have been isolated from insects in their over wintering sites in Turkey, Syria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Russia. In laboratory bioassays, they were tested against sunn pests, tarnished plant bug and western flower thrips. Several were highly pathogenic to all of these insects, and selected for further evaluation.

The next step in the development of these biological agents is to determine at what stage in the pests' life cycle fungi could best be used. Two possibilities are

  1. As they migrate to the fields in the early spring
  2. In their over wintering sites among the foothills surrounding the fields.

Six of the most promising isolates were tested in on-plant and in-litter bioassays in January 2000. Several of the tested isolates provided 80-100% mortality within 10 days. Though sunn pest mortality occurred more rapidly among the in-litter assays, by day 15 sunn pest mortality was equally high in the on-plant assays. These results demonstrate the great potential of fungi for sunn pest IPM. It may be possible to use them both in over wintering sites and on plants in the field. Plans are underway to conduct small scale pilot tests to further evaluate their efficacy under field conditions. The compatibility of fungi with non target organisms and chemical pesticides are also planned for the future.

This work has been done in close cooperation with Dr. Mustapha El Bouhssini, Head of the Entomology Department at ICARDA. He is currently conducting research to evaluate the impact of egg parasitoids on sunn pest field populations.

Read more about this topic:  Sunn Pest

Famous quotes containing the words pest and/or research:

    “The pest of society is egotists. There are dull and bright, sacred and profane, coarse and fine egotists. ‘Tis a disease that, like influenza, falls on all constitutions.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Feeling that you have to be the perfect parent places a tremendous and completely unnecessary burden on you. If we’ve learned anything from the past half-century’s research on child development, it’s that children are remarkably resilient. You can make lots of mistakes and still wind up with great kids.”
    —Lawrence Kutner (20th century)