Integrated pest management of plant sucking bugs (Hemiptera: Miridae) in Australian cotton: back to the future

Abstract

Creontiades dilutus (green mirid) and C. pacificus (brown mirid) are major hemipteran pests of transgenic (Bt) cotton in Australia. Current integrated pest management (IPM) guidelines for mirids in Australian cotton, based on economic thresholds and sampling recommendations, were developed and disseminated to industry at the start of the 2005–06 growing season and have remained largely unchanged since then. However, adoption of mirid IPM guidelines by industry has been highly variable and generally well below expectation. Annual surveys of crop protection practices across the Australian cotton industry, from 2010 to 2017, indicate that a third of all mirid sprays are applied below the recommended thresholds each year. More than half of all survey respondents in the 2017 survey indicated lack of confidence in the mirid thresholds due to highly variable and disproportionate damage, a phenomenon best described as the ‘mirid enigma’. A critical review of RD&E outputs since 1998 shows that potential contributors to the mirid enigma include but are not limited to biological, ecological and methodological factors. Mirid feeding damage is likely to vary with developmental stage, gender and reproductive status. Ecological factors including trophic effects and multiple host plant usage are potential modifiers of mirid feeding damage. Methodological and technological constraints and shortcomings are evident in the threshold research done to date. Inadequate commercial sampling that results in unreliable estimates of pest density in the crop is a major contributor to the mirid enigma. Failure to account for the complexity of factors that can influence the nature and severity of mirid damage to cotton often results in fruit loss due to non-mirid related factors being incorrectly attributed to mirids. An alternative approach to mirid management based on modelling the dynamics of net fruit load (production–loss) proposed over 15 years ago is discussed.

Servant Leadership, Innovative Capacity and Performance in Third Sector Entities

“…However, a comparison of the results of three different statistical analyses -one that includes all control variables, another that includes only the control variables that are significantly related to our dependent variable and a third one without any control variables-revealed almost identical parameters, without any changes in the significance levels and confidence intervals. On the basis of the above and following Bernerth and Aguinis's (2016), no control variable was included in our analysis. By comparing the two models and bearing in mind the quality parameters, we can state that the mediation model is better than the direct model: the SRMR (Standardized Root Mean Square Residual).…”

Frequency of occurrence of field bugs-mirids on the cotton–alfalfa agrocenosis in the Tashkent oasis

“…Numerous species focus on glandular-hairy or even carnivorous plants, and Ranzovius Reuter species are some of the rare heteropterans that coexist with spider webs as commensals. As natural adversaries as well as pests, the Miridae family, the largest of the Heteroptera, has a significant economic impact on the entire planet [1,2,3]. Herbivorous and omnivorous mirid bugs, in contrast to the majority of Hemiptera, are lacerate/macerate and flush feeders rather than phloem feeders.…”

Tiny Flies: A Mighty Pest That Threatens Agricultural Productivity—A Case for Next-Generation Control Strategies of Whiteflies

“…Hence, the development of sustainable management strategies needs a mechanistic acquaintance of factors that affect the growth of the pest population on the montage of host crops and others. Numerous control strategies under the umbrella of IPM, including physical barriers/cultural control measures, biotic agents, pesticides, and host–plant resistance, have been used to combat hemipteran pests in general and whiteflies in particular [ 5 , 6 ]. The IPM strategies mainly focus on keeping the number of adults on plants below an economic threshold level largely by the application of non-eco-friendly chemical pesticides [ 7 ].…”