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...

Concerns about possible undesired environmental effects of transgenic crops have prompted numerous evaluations of such crops. So-called Bt crops receive particular attention because they carry bacteria-derived genes coding for insecticidal proteins that might negatively affect non-target arthropods. Here we show a remarkable positive effect of Bt maize on the performance of the corn leaf aphid ...

The corn planthopper, Peregrinus maidis, is a major pest of agronomically-important crops. Peregrinus maidis has a large geographical distribution and transmits Maize mosaic rhabdovirus (MMV) and Maize stripe tenuivirus (MSpV). The objective of this study was to develop effective RNAi methods for P. maidis. Vacuolar-ATPase (V-ATPase) is an essential enzyme for hydrolysis of ATP and for transpor...

The vasculature of plants act as a channel for transport of signal(s) that facilitate long-distance intraplant communication. In maize, Maize insect resistance1-Cysteine Protease (Mir1-CP), which has homology to papain-like proteases, provides defense to different feeding guilds of insect pests. Furthermore, accumulation of Mir1-CP in the vasculature suggests that Mir1-CP can potentially functi...

As a response to insect attack, maize (Zea mays) has inducible defenses that involve large changes in gene expression and metabolism. Piercing/sucking insects such as corn leaf aphid (Rhopalosiphum maidis) cause direct damage by acquiring phloem nutrients as well as indirect damage through the transmission of plant viruses. To elucidate the metabolic processes and gene expression changes involv...

Previously, sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) was developed as a vector for transient expression of heterologous genes in Zea mays (maize). Here, we show that SCMV can also be applied virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) endogenous maize genes. Comparison sense and antisense VIGS constructs targeting phytoene desaturase (PDS) showed resulted greater reduction expression. In time course after infecti...

Intensive agriculture has led to a decrease in biodiversity in many areas of the world. Poisoning birds directly or eliminating habitats suitable for birds within an agricultural landscape, may remove potential control agents of insect pests. The main objective of this project was to investigate the effects of excluding avian species from portions of cornfields through the use of bird-proof net...