The Canadian Entomologist (2021) 153, 598-615
André Abou-Haidar, Patil Tawidian, Hana Sobh, Margaret Skinner, Bruce Parker and Yusuf Abou-Jawdah (2021)
Efficacy of Phytoseiulus persimilis and Amblyseius swirskii for integrated pest management for greenhouse cucumbers under Mediterranean environmental conditions
The Canadian Entomologist 153 (5), 598-615
Abstract: The greenhouse cucumber pests, Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), Frankliniella occidentalis (Thysanoptera: Thripidae), and Tetranychus urticae (Acari: Tetranychidae), are major threats to the production of greenhouse cucumbers (Cucurbitaceae) in Lebanon. The development of insecticide resistance by these pests has prompted the use of alternative and sustainable pest management strategies. In this study, we used integrated pest management strategies, including the release of the biological control agents, Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot (Mesostigmata: Phytoseiidae) and Phytoseiulus persimilis Athias-Henriot (Mesostigmata: Phytoseiidae), to control whitefly, thrips, and two-spotted spider mite populations on greenhouse cucumber plants in two commercial production sites (sites A and B). We also compared the efficacy of pest population suppression using the integrated pest management strategy with that of chemical pest control. Our results show that biological control effectively maintains the cucumber pest populations below the economic threshold when coupled with additional integrated pest management measures. In addition, we show that biological control agents were equally or more effective in pest population suppression compared to eight and 12 insecticidal and acaricidal sprays performed in the control greenhouses at sites A and B, respectively. Altogether, our results show the efficacy of adopting integrated pest management and biological control for pest population suppression in greenhouse cucumber production under Mediterranean environmental conditions.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied with permission by the publisher.)
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Database assignments for author(s): Margaret Skinner, Bruce L. Parker, Yusuf Abou-Jawdah
Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
biocontrol - natural enemies
Research topic(s) for beneficials or antagonists:
evaluation - screening - selection
