Pest monitoring is time consuming and labor intensive task, since pheromone traps, where insects are being caught, need to be visited on regular basis in order to monitor development of pest population. An innovative product which provides automated and real-time monitoring of pests reduces the need for field-scouting to minimum. In order to develop such product and to keep the whole system run...

Conservation plantings of native wildflowers were established adjacent to highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) fields to test the hypothesis that provision of resources for natural enemies increases their abundance in adjacent crop fields without increasing the abundance of pest insects. For two growing seasons, natural enemies and herbivorous insects were sampled in fields with flower...

The Squash bug, Anasa tristis (De Geer), is a major piercing/sucking pest of cucurbits, causing extensive damage to plants and fruits, and transmitting phytopathogens. No genomic resources to facilitate field and laboratory studies of this pest were available; therefore the first de novo exome for this destructive pest was assembled. RNA was extracted from insects challenged with bacterial and ...

Over the past decade there has been a revolution in the development of new affordable sensing and tracking technology, and this has led to the deployment of a vast array of location sensors and data loggers for monitoring and recording animal movement [1,2]. This revolution has led to an enormous amount of animal movement data being collected and much of this is now freely available [3]. Alongs...

The insect growth regulator (IGR) hydroprene is a juvenile hormone analogue used in urban and stored-product insect control programs in the United States and in other developed countries. Hydroprene can be considered as an alternative to conventional insecticides because of its specific activity against immature insect stages, low persistence in the environment, and virtually non-toxic effects ...

Four insects species have emerged as important pests of alfalfa in the Western United States during the past decade. Cowpea aphid has long been a resident insect of the Western United States, but became a significant alfalfa pest during the past two years. The silverleaf whitefly has been a serious pest of alfalfa since 1991. Silverleaf whitefly reduces hay yield and contaminates alfalfa hay wi...