Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are the leading agricultural producers, especially for potato, sugar beet and sunflower. The cumulative effect of adverse climatic conditions, high weediness and losses related to viruses and pests (without any insecticide and herbicide treatments) led to losses amounting to 40-80% of potential production in the Russian Federation and other mentioned countries. We...

Beet necrotic yellow vein virus is the etiological agent of one of the most devastating sugar beet viral diseases: rhizomania. This review describes the molecular biology of the rhizomania disease, the functions of the BNYVV encoded proteins, the consequences of their expression as well as the biology of the BNYVV vector, Polymyxa betae. Root proliferation is an important part of the well-known...

Effects of the use of 200 g of either wheat bran, sugar beet pulp, soya bean hulls or alfalfa meal per kilogram diet on the digestive process of the weaned piglet were studied on 24 Duroc Landrace male piglets, weaned at 28 days of age. Piglets had an initial mean live weight of 7.92( 1.1) kg and were randomly distributed in six successive blocks of four animals. The total tract apparent digest...

The reform of the European Union's sugar regime caused potential decreasing beet prices. Therefore, the Speeding Up Sugar Yield (SUSY) project was initiated. At the start, a 3 × 15 target was formulated: in 2015 the national average sugar yield in the Netherlands equals 15 t/ha (60% of the sugar beet potential) and the total variable costs 15 euro/t sugar beet, aspiring a saving on total variab...

The European grapevine moth Lobesia botrana relies on a female produced sex pheromone for long-distance mate finding. Grapevine moth males compete heavily during limited time windows for females. The aim of this study was to investigate the perception of host plant volatiles by grapevine moth males and whether such compounds elicit upwind oriented flights. We compared five host plant headspace ...

An evolutionary war is being played out between the bat, which uses ultrasonic calls to locate insect prey, and the moth, which uses microscale ears to listen for the approaching bat. While the highest known frequency of bat echolocation calls is 212 kHz, the upper limit of moth hearing is considered much lower. Here, we show that the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, is capable of hearing...

In our paper (Liebhold et al. 2000) we reviewed the literature on the dynamics of the gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar L.) populations in North America. This paper highlighted a previously developed hypothesis, namely that gypsy moth outbreaks are caused by decreased rates of predation by small mammal predators as a result of diminished predator populations following years of low mast production by...

This study focused on conservation biological control of pear psylla, Cacopsylla pyricola, in the Pacific Northwest, USA. We hypothesized that insecticides applied against the primary insect pest, codling moth Cydia pomonella, negatively impact natural enemies of pear psylla, thus causing outbreaks of this secondary pest. Hence, the objective of this study was to understand how codling moth man...

Beet curly top virus (BCTV) and beet curly top Iran virus (BCTIV) are known as the causal agents of curly top disease in beet and several other dicotyledonous plants in Iran. These viruses are transmitted by Circulifer species, and until now, there has been no confirmed report of their seed transmission. A percentage (38.2-78.0%) of the seedlings developed from the seeds of a petunia local cult...