Devastating insect pests and environment-malignant pesticides that are applied against them are still a major problem in agriculture and horticulture. In plant breeding and genomic research there is an increasing demand for efficient screening methods of plants. In this study we develop a high-throughput phenotyping system to screen plants for resistance to aphids by video-tracking of insect be...

World wide crop losses without the use of pesticides and other non-chemical control strategies is estimated to be about 70% of crop production, amounting to U.S. $ 400 billion. Many insect pest families are known which cause serious damage to agriculture crops. Insect pest menace is one of the major factors that destabilize crop productivity in agricultural ecosystems. They are responsible for ...

In planta RNAi against essential insect genes offers a promising route to control insect crop pests, but is constrained for many insect groups, notably phloem sap-feeding hemipterans, by poor RNAi efficacy. This study conducted on the phloem-feeding whitefly Bemisia tabaci reared on tomato plants investigated the causes of low RNAi efficacy and routes to ameliorate the problem. Experiments usin...

Sweetpotatoes, Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam. (Convolvulaceae), are typically grown on bare soil where weeds and erosion can be serious problems. Conservation tillage systems using cover crop residues as mulch can help reduce these problems, but little is known about how conservation tillage affects yield and quality of sweetpotato or how these systems impact populations of beneficial and pest insec...

Insect cells have been successfully cultured in vitro as continuous cell lines for over 35 years. The media, culture methodology and conditions have been well resolved such that, for many insects, new cells lines can be routinely developed. Factors that are considered important for developing insect cell cultures are described as well as some of the history that led to the success. One of the m...

Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-mediated gene silencing, also known as RNA interference (RNAi), has been a breakthrough technology for functional genomic studies and represents a potential tool for the management of insect pests. Since the inception of RNAi numerous studies documented successful introduction of exogenously synthesized dsRNA or siRNA into an organism triggering highly efficient gene...

Vegetables, cultivated on 4.65 million ha with annual production of 53.5 million t in South and Southeast Asia, are subject to severe yield losses from insect pests and diseases in the tropics. Chemical pesticides account for onethird to one-half of the total mean material input cost for vegetable production in the region. Extensive and inappropriate pesticide use has led to pests developing re...

Chinese wolfberry Lycium barbarum L. (Solanales: Solanaceae), is an ancient herbal medicine and has been used for years in China. However, insect pests associated with this plant had not yet been well studied. The present study characterized the main pests associated with this plant. The method of risk assessment indices and the method of experience formulae were used to analyze the risk of pes...

Large scale application of chemical pesticides to reduce the crop losses caused by insect pests and diseases, valued at over US$250 billion annually, has not only led to serious environmental hazards, but has also resulted in development of resistance to pesticides in pest populations. It is in this context that crop varieties capable of resisting pest damage will play a vital role in reducing ...