Companion plants are being tested in peach and apple orchards to increase biological control of insect pests. These plants are also alternate hosts of tarnished plant bugs, Lygus lineorlaris (Palisot de Beauvois) (Heteroptera: Miridae) and stink bugs (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae), which are pests of developing fruit. Field data show that the addition of companion plants does not increase fruit damage. Laboratory choice tests confirm that the Heteroptera pests prefer to forage on flowers and seeds of the companion plants (Phacelia tanacetifolia and Ammi majus) rather than on developing fruit. Our results suggest the possibility of using flowering plants in orchards as trap crops to control Heteroptera pests rather than a reliance on calender-based insecticide applications.
Species 1: Heteroptera Miridae Lygus lineolaris (Tarnished plant bug)
Keywords: Stink bug, Companion plants
Back to Ten-Minute Papers, Section F. Crop Protection Entomology
Back to Ten-Minute Papers, Section F. Crop Protection Entomology, Subsections Fa and Fb
Back to The 2002 ESA Annual Meeting and Exhibition