a fundamental shift to a total system approach for crop management in greenhouses is urgently needed to resolve escalating economic and environmental consequences of long-lasting undesired effects of synthetic pesticides used in combating agricultural pests. the aim of this study was to examine a potential new approach i.e. microbial-based production system (mps) for greenhouse-grown peppers. f...

Soil arthropod pests are those which live in the soil and cause economic loss to humans. Root maggots, wireworms, whitegrubs, termites and ants are important soil pests. Insecticides are used for the management of these pests and the buffering capacity of soil makes difficult for these pests to be managed and warrants high concentration of pesticides with repeated applications. This increases t...

Many studies have supported the enemies hypothesis, which suggests that natural enemies are more efficient at controlling arthropod pests in polyculture than in monoculture agro-ecosystems. However, we do not yet have evidence as to whether this hypothesis holds true in peach orchards over several geographic locations. In the two different geographic areas in eastern China (Xinchang a town in t...

Research has concluded that global warming will likely increase abundance and occurrence of insect pests and plant diseases in agricultural systems. Most of the evidence cited for this increase is based on either empirically derived information, simulation models developed from laboratory observations and/or environmental extremes that resulted in pest outbreaks. While these phenomena can help ...

Pesticides including insecticides and miticides are primarily used to regulate arthropod (insect and mite) pest populations in agricultural and horticultural crop production systems. However, continual reliance on pesticides may eventually result in a number of potential ecological problems including resistance, secondary pest outbreaks, and/or target pest resurgence [1,2]. Therefore, implement...

A multitude of insects and mites attack fruit crops throughout the tropics. The traditional method for controlling most of these pests is the application of chemical pesticides. Growing concern on the negative environmental effects has encouraged the development of alternatives. Inundatively and inoculatively applied microbial control agents (virus, bacteria, fungi, and entomopathogenic nematod...

Compared with parasitoids and predators, classical biological control programs targeting arthropod pests have used pathogens and nematodes very little. However, some pathogens and nematodes that have been introduced have become established and provided excellent control and have been introduced in increasing numbers of areas over decades, often after distributions of pests have increased. We su...

Oilseed rape (Brassica napus) is an important combinable break crop in the UK, which is largely protected from arthropod pests by insecticidal chemicals. Despite ongoing debate regarding the use of neonicotinoids, the dominant seed treatment ingredients used for this crop, there is little publicly available data comparing the efficacy of insecticides in controlling key arthropod pests or compar...

Biomass harvest may eventually be conducted on over 100 000 000 ha of US crop and forest lands to meet federally-mandated targets for renewable biofuels. Such largescale land use changes could profoundly impact working landscapes and the arthropod communities that inhabit them. We review the literature on dedicated biofuel crops and biomass harvest from forests to look for commonalities in arth...

The worldwide spread of modern, high-density confined poultry production systems under the direction of integrators has intensified the importance of a select number of arthropod ectoparasites and habitat pests. This concentrated production of poultry provides artificial ecosystems that are sometimes ideal for the development of large populations of arthropod pests. At the same time the systems...