Rice is the staple food for the majority of the world’s population. Globally, rice is cultivated on an estimated 160 m ha annually [1]. Although the U.S contributes only 2% of world rice production from less than 1% of world’s acreage, the U.S is one of top five global exporters of rice [2]. Insect pests pose a major biotic threat to rice production throughout the world. In the U.S, the rice wa...

willow leaf beetle, plagiodera versicolora is an important pest of willow trees that feeds on the leaves both as larvae and as adults. -amylases (ec 3.2.1.1) are the major insect digestive enzymes that catalyze the endohydrolysis of long -1,4-glucan chains such as starch and glycogen. in the current study, -amylase activity was studied in the midgut of larvae and adults of p. versicolora. am...

Invasive insect pests cost the agricultural industry billions of dollars annually in crop losses. Timely detection of pests is critical for management efficiency. Innovative pest detection strategies, such as environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques, combined with efficient predators, maximize sampling resolution across space and time and may improve surveillance. We tested the hypothesis that tempe...

Pyridalyl is a novel synthetic insecticide discovered by Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd. and has been developed globally as the trade names, Pleo, or Sumipleo. The compound is highly effective against various pests of Lepidoptera, Thysanoptera, Diptera and certain Acari, including resistant strains that are less susceptible or resistant to existing insecticides. The lepidopterous larvae treated with...

The reduction of insect pests by birds in agriculture may provide an incentive for farming practices that enhance the conservation value of farms for birds and other wildlife. We investigated pest reduction services by insectivorous birds on a coffee farm in Jamaica, West Indies. Our results suggest that birds reduced insect pests on our study site. Infestation by the coffee berry borer Hypothe...

Hard red winter wheat was treated with pirimiphos-methyl at 4, 6 and 8 mg kg(-1), synergized pyrethrins at 0.38, 0.75, 1.13 and 1.5 mg kg(-1), and combinations of the two insecticides, to conduct laboratory bioassays against four beetle pests of stored grain, red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum (Herbst), rusty grain beetle Cryptolestes ferrugineus (Stephens), lesser grain borer Rhyzopertha dom...

The use of non-crop plants to provide the resources that herbivorous crop pests' natural enemies need is being increasingly incorporated into integrated pest management programs. We evaluated insect functional groups found on three refuges consisting of five different plant species each, planted next to a maize crop in Lima, Peru, to investigate which refuge favoured natural control of herbivor...

Authors: CARROLL B. WILLIAMS, JR., is a pioneer scientist studying integrated management systems for forest insect pests and diseases, with headquarters in Berkeley. charge of the Station's field evaluation of chemical insecticides res'carch unit, with headquarters at Davis, Calif.

BACKGROUND The rapid assessment of biodiversity making use of surveys of local knowledge has been successful for different biological taxa. However, there are no reports on the testing of such tools for sampling insect fauna. The present study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of different ethnobiological techniques for rapid sampling of insect fauna. METHODS Field research for the conventiona...