Western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande), is a severe pest of many greenhouse crops, causing damage to over 200 species of vegetables and ornamentals through direct feeding damage, disease vectoring and control costs. However, the cryptic nature of F. occidentalis, together with emerging problems of direct and cross resistance to commonly used insecticides, means current chemical control options are only short-term and often unreliable. While the need to reduce reliance on chemical pesticides has stimulated interest in exploiting biological control agents of thrips in integrated pest management strategies, attempts with predacious phytoseiid mites, anthocorid bugs and parasitoids have largely failed to provide acceptable protection for plants grown for high aesthetic qualities, such as chrysanthemums and greenhouse-grown marigolds. The allantonematid nematode, Thripinema nicklewoodi Siddiqi, parasitizes F. occidentalis residing within the flower buds and foliar terminals, areas that are generally impenetrable for insecticides and most natural enemies, causing sterility of females without killing them. We describe a rearing procedure for this obligate parasite and report on progress of experimental studies to evaluate the potential of T. nicklewoodi to suppress F. occidentalis on potted chrysanthemums using inoculative release of nematode-infective thrips.
Species 1: Tylenchida Allantonematidae Thripinema nicklewoodi
Species 2: Thysanoptera Thripidae Frankliniella occidentalis (western flower thrips)
Keywords: inoculative microbial control
The ESA 2001 Annual Meeting - 2001: An Entomological Odyssey of ESA