Organic farms win at potato pest control: Nature Newsa study suggesting that organic agriculture gives better pest control
and larger plants than conventional farming is sure to reignite longstanding debates about the merits of organic versus conventional agriculture.
and they may have better, organic pest control. Much focus is put on species numbers or'richness'.
their study found that the increased evenness of organic farms compared with that of conventional farms led to 18%lower pest densities and 35%larger plants.
a variety of aubergine modified to produce a protein from the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacterium that is toxic to insect pests.
'lowering the pest population in conventional maize fields too. As a result, farmers planting non-GM CROPS benefit from fewer pests,
but don't have to pay the higher prices for the GM seeds. Overall, Hutchison's team found that corn-borer populations have declined by between 27%and 73%across the five states in the 14 years
This work provides strong evidence for the reduced pest burden for non-Bt corn caused by the Bt corn, based on a reduction in overall pest-population size
Conventional growers also help to stop corn borers becoming resistant to the Bt toxin by hosting pest populations that are susceptible to it, according to the team's research.
and non-GM fields means pests that develop a tolerance can breed with susceptible populations from conventional fields,
Sterile moths wipe out cotton pest: Nature Newsbetween May and October for four consecutive years, aeroplanes crisscrossed the morning skies above Arizona's cotton fields, dropping millions of tiny moths onto the croplands below.
The little grey insects are among the world's most notorious agricultural pests: their larvae are the pink bollworms (Pectinophora gossypiella), also known as'pinkies'.
The technique works best on pests that are not particularly populous. If you have something like aphids or thrips,
and sterile-moth releases could wipe out pest populations and stave off Bt resistance for at least 20 years.
And in 2009 and 2010, pink bollworm was no longer an economically damaging pest in Arizona.
Mayans converted wetlands to farmland: Nature Newsthe ancient Maya civilization is recognized widely for its awe-inspiring pyramids, sophisticated mathematics and advanced written language.
and promotes pests and water loss. Additional rainfall, meanwhile, is beneficial up to a point. The authors used their modelling results to estimate the effect that temperature
because the regulations for GM plants derive from the Federal Plant Pest Act, a decades-old law intended to safeguard against plant pathogens from overseas.
The Plant Pest Act was completely inappropriate for regulating biotech crops, but the USDA jury-rigged it, says Bill Freese, science-policy analyst at the Center for Food safety in WASHINGTON DC.
Now we can foresee this loophole getting wider and wider as companies turn more to plants and away from bacteria and other plant-pest organisms.
making the plant produce toxins that confer resistance to some insect pests. A Bt cotton variety is being developed for Kenyan farmers at KARI.
and reduce the amount of weeds and harmful pests such as the rice planthopper. This invasive insect has the potential to devastate entire rice fields an outbreak in Thailand last year destroyed four per cent of the country's harvest.
such as a flood at a power plant or the loss of crops due to pests. Jim Hall, director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, UK,
They also hope it will help in the development of tomatoes that can survive pests, pathogens and even climate change,
says agronomist Harold Coble at the Office of Pest Management Policy in Raleigh, North carolina, part of the US Department of agriculture (USDA), who notes that 383 known weed varieties have the genetic defences to survive one or more herbicides."
and the development of tools for managing insect pests. Two months into his new role Ramaswamy chatted with Nature about NIFA research, working with a tight budget,
around 94%of the soya beans and 88%of the maize (corn) grown in the United states is engineered genetically to resist herbicides, insect pests or both, according to the US Department of agriculture.
To identify labs that might still hold rinder  pest virus, the FAO carried out extensive literature searches,
because the country was relatively free of coconut pests and diseases. In an attempt to contain the disease, movement of coconuts and coconut palms, both from the gene bank and for commercial reasons,
and the ant behavior and signaling dynamics could add to research about pest control for agriculture.
researchers are reaching for the latest tools in an effort to combat the pest, from sequencing its genome to crossbreeding coffee plants with resistant strains.
protecting them from insect pests. But a growing body of research suggests that sublethal exposure to the pesticides in nectar
interim head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisations's Emergency Prevention System for Transboundary Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases (EMPRES) in Rome.
says Vincent Martin, interim head of the FAO s Emergency Prevention System for Transboundary Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases (EMPRES) in Rome.
Around half the country is affected already by the pests (pictured), which threaten large swaths of the island s rice production
These findings, published online today in Nature1, could help scientists to design insect repellents to combat malaria, dengue and agricultural pests.
so a chemical that targets the gene could help to keep pests away from economically important crops."
which is modified to produce a protein called Bt that is harmful to insect pests, is one of only two GM CROPS approved for cultivation in the EU. The other is a high-starch GM potato called Amflora that is intended for industrial applications such as paper production.
has stuck so far to a strict interpretation of a 1957 law designed to protect agriculture against plant pests that was coopted in 1986 to regulate GM CROPS.
a bacterial pest that can insert DNA into plant genomes. In 2011, APHIS regulators announced that a herbicide-tolerant Kentucky bluegrass would not fall under their purview,
or any other plant-pest DNA to engineer the grass. The company, Scotts  Miracle-Gro of Marysville, Ohio,
in part to exploit a loophole in US law that facilitates regulatory approval of organisms carrying transgenes not derived from bacterial pests.
whose plots are invaded by the pest, Lu says.""If the EPSP-synthase gene gets into the wild rice species, their genetic diversity,
despite growing concerns about the vulnerability of northern forests to pests and fires.""Everybody hears about negative feedbacks on the carbon cycle,
and other birds significantly reduce damage by a devastating coffee pest, the coffee berry borer beetle.
"Incorporating their conservation into your management of pests is absolutely something you should do. The borer beetle is originally from Africa,
and he is happy to see that Jamaican birds are not alone in their taste for the pest.
Selective tree-clearing on Mount Sutro would help the larger remaining trees to fight the beetle and fungal pests currently afflicting the forest,
Crop pests advancing with global warmingcrop pests and diseases are moving towards the poles at about the same speed as warmer temperatures.
and pests may contribute to making matters worse.""Our defences, pesticides and fungicides, are being asked to deal with larger and larger numbers of pests and diseases,
each of which can evolve fungicide or pesticide resistance, says ecologist Dan Bebber of the University of Exeter, UK, who led the new study.
Expansion of pest populations into new territories increases the risk that these organisms will escape our control.
Global movement of crop pests had never been analysed comprehensively. To fill this gap Bebber and his colleagues made use of historical records held by CABI (formerly known as the Centre for Agricultural Bioscience International),
which document crop pests and diseases around the world from 1822 to the present.""No one has looked at any of these datasets.
For 612 different pest species, the researchers identified the first year in which each was observed in a new country
which the pest reached that country or region s average latitude. The main vulnerability of their study was biases in the data.
The group hypothesised that, in the absence of any real trend, pests would appear to be moving towards the equator rather than the poles.
This is because wealthier countries have the scientific resources to detect pests earlier than others, and wealthier countries tend to be at higher latitudes.
and study their pests better, the pests range could appear to move into the tropics. Instead, the team found that, on average,
crop pests have been moving towards the poles at 2. 7 kilometres per year, which is very close to the rate of climate change5.
However the rate of shift varied significantly for different groups and among individual species. Fungi, beetles, true bugs, mites,
This is the first one to show that a similar process is happening in pest species,
that those pest groups seen moving towards the equator largely nematode worms and viruses are the most poorly understood,
"There s no doubt that neonicotinoids are fantastic to control insect pests, says Barbieri.""But we should be more careful in the way we use them in nature
Strategies such as planting crop varieties that are resistant to the pest, separating individual seedlings to minimize pest spread,
applying low levels of pesticides and implementing biological control with natural enemies means that"there haven t been major outbreaks since 2009,
is integrated part of an pest-management programme, launched in 2007, that also includes the use of other chemical attractants and pesticides,
Most of the forest pest species in North america originally came from China and some of its exports have wreaked havoc in Europe.
Fungus discovery offers pine-wilt hopethe pine-wood nematode is a major pest in the forests of China.
The pests seem to prefer certain pine forests over others, but the reason has not been clear."
Since its first detection in Portugal in 1999, the pest has spread into Spain and threatens forestry in other European countries2."
and markets endophyte-hosting turf varieties that repel pest attacks without being toxic to animals.
Plant killers protect rainforest diversityvoracious pests may be foes of individual plants, but they can benefit forests.
which specialized pests dine on it. Those pests then keep dominant plants in check giving other species room to flourish."
"The more common a plant is, the more aggressively it is attacked, says Keith Clay, a plant ecologist at Indiana University in Bloomington,
which is engineered to be resistant to insect pests. 12-13 february London hosts a global conference on the illegal trade in wildlife.
and TRAP vermin pests and nuisance animals. Everything from bats to raccoons (which carry rabies.
or killing off animals that are considered pests. Pests are just animals that have been given a natural ability to survive where we dont really want them.
The whole discussion is not just if Panda's should be allowed to live on with human assistance
The flies are a major pest to olive crops. The idea is that the flies all male will mate with wild olive fruit flies.
In a new program the U s. Forest Service is fueling a biomass power plant in Colorado with trees killed by a pest called the mountain pine beetle Greenwire reports.
and time-intensive field work according to a new study of the pine processionary moth a pest that destroys pine and cedar trees.
While they go to work pollinating our crops bees could simultaneously bring natural microbial pest control agents to help those crops stave off disease.
For example honeybees or bumblebees can be used to carry natural pest killers like the fungus Beauveria bassiana
(i e. they don't die from) pest and herbicides that are sprayed on them. Tomatoes Tomahtoes I guess
Currently the GMOS on the market today have been given genetic traits to provide protection from pests tolerance to pesticides
fir only from 2001 9-11. and for only willy brown got shell no pest strip's!@.
fir only from 2001 9-11. and for only willy brown got shell no pest strip's!@.
When farmers encounter plant pests their first response would be to kill it by using pesticides herbicides or antibiotics.
That's because native bees don't suffer from the same pests and viruses that honeybees do
covert wars and for only willy brown got shellno pest strip's!@.@and no jet boarding calls on 9-11!
covert wars and for only willy brown got shellno pest strip's!@.@and no jet boarding calls on 9-11!
covert wars and for only willy brown got shellno pest strip's!@.@and no jet boarding calls on 9-11!
fir only from 2001 9-11. and for only willy brown got shell no pest strip's!@.
Shouldn't wolf populations be allowed to control this pest? Check out Youtube to see wolves taking down boars.
i am a pest control tech located in brooklyn new york . i own my own pest control business so maybe
i can shed some light on this. She is correct when she says there is a growing resistance on bed bugs by the use of pesticides.
Their pesticides are the biggest pest the world has seen ever. Start to look when the bees population started it's decline
covert wars and for only willybrown got shellno pest strip's!@.@and no jet boarding calls on 9-11!
and are back to being the occasional pests of farmers and ranchers. Looks like the Sierra Club's page with the infographic is more informative stating in its Editor's note that the data is for the entire United states
what species a biological control agent living thing meant to kill weeds or pests ill affect.
#Pest In Brazil Has evolved Resistance Against GMO Corncrop-munching caterpillars in Brazil are no longer put off by genetically modified plants designed to kill them Reuters reports.
and the pest in question is the Spodoptera frugiperda which is native to tropical regions of The americas.
Yet resistance to Bt crops has been occurring with pest species throughout the world. The first publicly announced case of insects in a field evolving resistance to Bt plants occurred in India in 2009.
The team found that in 2005 only one of the 13 pest species examined could eat Bt plants without dying.
Controlling pests whether it's with microbes in a hospital or grubs in a field is always an arms race against evolution.
because their Bt crops failed to deter pests. Companies are also likely developing new GMO crops perhaps with more insect toxins engineered into them to combat the newly evolved resistance.
Some pests have evolved resistance against those plants however. There are some scientifically proven ways to slow bugs'ability to adapt to GMO toxins.
Biologists also introduce genes to make plants pest-and herbicide-resistant; those traits dominate the more than 430 million acres of GMO crops that have already been planted globally.
but state and federal officials are working hard to eradicate the giant pest before it inflicts significant damage.
but applying it to fight pests is a recent development. The EPA met on Tuesday (Jan 28) to discuss safety issues regarding the technique
Monsanto has applied for regulatory approval of corn that is genetically engineered to use RNAI as the approach is called for short to kill the western corn rootworm one of the costliest of agricultural pests.
at the agency s conference center in Arlington Va. There are concerns that RNAI could kill good species closely related to the target pest have health effects on humans or other unknown consquences.
#Corn pest decline may save farmers moneypopulations of European corn borer (ECB) a major corn crop pest have declined significantly in the eastern United states according to Penn State researchers.
ECB which was introduced to North america from Europe in the 1900s used to be the most important pest of corn in the United states said John Tooker assistant professor of entomology.
The team's results appeared in an early online edition of the journal Pest Management Science in December.
and may slow the spread of this noxious pest even ultimately controlling it suggest researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
or perhaps more efficient than other methods to slow the spread of this pest said Flower.
#Significant advance reported with genetically modified poplar treesforest geneticists at Oregon State university have created genetically modified poplar trees that grow faster have resistance to insect pests
This method has proven effective as a pest control measure in other crop species such as corn
and are subjected to multiple generations of insect pest attacks. That's why engineered insect protection may offer even greater commercial value
Above all globalization and perhaps climate change bring not only more foreign plants and invertebrates to these shores but also--more worrying by far--new pests and diseases especially of trees such as the recent ash chalara.
and seed size and production defense against pests and pathogens and response to abiotic stresses such as drought and ozone Pandey said.
However banana yields worldwide are threatened severely by pests. Dirk HÃ lscher from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena Germany and an international team of researchers have discovered that some banana varieties accumulate specific plant toxins in the immediate vicinity
This local accumulation is crucial for the plant's resistance to this pest organism. The toxin is stored in lipid droplets in the body of the nematode and the parasite finally dies.
These findings provide important clues for the development of pest-resistant banana varieties. Banana yields worldwide threatened by pestsbananas are among the world's most important food crops.
and vitamins B and C. Apart from fungi and insects the parasitic nematode Radopholus similis is considered a major banana pest.
In order to control such pests in banana plantations high doses of synthetic pesticides are used which not only cause ecological damage but can also have severe negative effects on the health of people who are exposed to these chemicals.
which was most toxic to the pest organism. By using imaging techniques the researchers were able to visualize the plant toxin within the body of the roundworm.
#Teens publish studies on pest-killing wasps, berry funguswe know more about wildlife this week thanks to research by two Canadian teens.
Their research on wasps and leaf disease reveal that a Canadian wasp is an efficient killer of an agricultural pest
Young's research focused on an agricultural pest and the wasps that kill it. The Diamondback Moth invaded Canada a long time ago
Researchers have known for years that two Canadian wasp species can kill the pest moth. The wasps lay their eggs in moth caterpillars then the baby wasps grow up eating the caterpillar from the inside out until the wasps emerge from the caterpillar killing the caterpillar in the process.
While researchers knew these wasps kill the moth pest they didn't know which wasp was more effective under different conditions.
and greenhouse operators combat the moth pest without the need for pesticides. My research won first prize at the Ottawa regional science fair and two of the judges were editors of The Canadian Field-Naturalist.
Worldwide today approximately 5000 pesticides are utilized as substances for plant protection and for pest control.
#New rearing method may help control western bean cutwormthe western bean cutworm is a destructive insect pest of dry beans and corn.
The ability to mass produce this pest insect will enhance fundamental research including evaluation of control tactics and toxin susceptibility.
#Fruit pest targeted by genomic researchthe spotted wing drosophila a major pest that targets berries and cherries and other fruits in the United states Canada and Europe is itself being targeted thanks to groundbreaking genome sequencing at the University of California Davis
and control strategies for the pest. Officially published Dec 1 in the journal G3 (Genes Genomics Genetics) the open-access research has been available online for several weeks and drawing global attention.
To enable basic and applied research of this important pest Drosophila suzukii we sequenced the genome to obtain a high-quality reference sequence said molecular geneticist Joanna Chiu of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
The posting of the genome and comparative sequence analysis on the publicly accessible Spottedwingflybase Web portal could lead to more species-specific weapons to combat the destructive pest Chiu said.
He also pointed out that the genome work may relieve the fears of countries wishing to import American fruit but not the pest.
#Integrated pest management for billbugs in orchardgrasstwo weevil species the bluegrass billbug and the hunting billbug have caused widespread economic damage to orchardgrass a cool season grass that is cultivated throughout the United states as a high
However a new article in the open-access Journal of Integrated Pest Management called Ecology Taxonomy and Pest Management of Billbugs (Coleoptera:
Curculionidae) in Orchardgrass of Virginia presents an overview of the biology of orchardgrass and its associated billbug pests and reviews the control options for these pests.
and if so how likely they are to become pests. Finally the current measures available for control of billbugs in orchardgrass are limited extremely.
New management tools insecticides or otherwise are required to effectively control this pest. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Entomological Society of America.
In a new article in the Journal of Integrated Pest Management--an open-access peer-reviewed extension journal--the authors explain why this has occurred
and they recommend an integrated pest management (IPM) approach to address it. In Resistance to Bt Corn by Western Corn Rootworm (Coleoptera:
One approach to IRM is not necessarily optimal for all insect pests according to the authors who recommend that growers use the following IPM approaches to delay further rootworm resistance to Bt corn:
Seeing this disjunctive researchers from the INIFAP talked to the beekeepers about the organic control of the pest employing powdered thymol
but the cultivars have suffered historically from several deficiencies including low yields late maturity disease and pest susceptibility and lack of uniformity.
of the same species--emitted by the pest in North america's lodgepole and jack pine forests.
#Rising concerns over tree pests and diseasesnew research has found that the number of pests
The review The consequences of Tree Pests and Diseases for Ecosystem Services by scientists from the universities of Southampton Cambridge Oxford and St andrews is published today (15 november) in the journal Science.
The researchers say that new approaches to pest and disease management are needed that take into account these multiple services
However identifying all species that may become pests will be impossible and researchers stress the importance of risk management at pathways of introduction especially where modern trade practices provide potential new routes of entry for pests and pathogens.
They argue that science-based policy and practice can prevent the introduction of new diseases
Modern pest and disease management for plants and the natural environment needs to be based on an extensive science base.
and considered the consequences of pests and diseases for the full range of ecosystem services provided by trees.
The term pest and disease was used to describe all pathogens and small-to medium-size insect herbivores that--by causing tree damage and death--disrupt the ecosystem services provided by trees.
When living organisms or natural enemies of a pest are utilized in order to reduce pest population levels this is known as biological control.
Killing ticks from insideingeborg Klingen Head of Section of Invertebrate Pests at Bioforsk Plant Health and Plant Protection Division and her group are currently conducting field trials with BIPESCO 5
which is a formulation of an isolate of the tick pathogenic fungus Metarhizium. The fungus we are using in the trial is a natural enemy of insects
from defoliation by leaf-munching pests. The water-stressed tropical forest trees support the production of more honeydew a sugary excretion imbibed by the Azteca ants that nest in the laurels'stem cavities.
Instead they host scale insects familiar to gardeners as common backyard pests which produce the honeydew.
they pay a modest fee up front to avoid losing all their leaves to pests in the future.
As the climate changes the increased frequency of extreme weather events such as drought may act together with rare biological events such as outbreaks of insect pests to profoundly alter the ecology and evolution of plant-animal interactions.
At the same time it is less vulnerable to pests. And finally it does not require a subtropical climate
The remarkable ability of this ant to survive even in extremely human changed environment also makes it a well-known pest in tropical climates commonly called crazy ant due to its erratic movements.
A variety of dependable cover crops are used to subdue weeds build productive soil control pests and diseases and enhance overall sustainability of organic systems.
This natural hormone protects the plants against pests. Juvik's team wanted to determine which GSS
and other problems--but Dartmouth researchers say warmer temperatures are also making many forests grow faster and some less susceptible to pests
For example pine bark beetles have killed recently trees over more area of U s. forests than wildfires including in areas with little previous experience managing aggressive pests.
and generalize the underlying theory to cope with unprecedented changes in pest pressure the authors say.
which may increase resilience to pests. Also pest populations in some regions may decline allowing those forests
and their environmental and economic benefits to expand. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Dartmouth College.
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