In response to visual, tactile and odor cues insects demonstrate preferences for particular plant species, cultivars or crop stages. These preferences can be exploited for pest management through the use of trap crops, i.e. planting strips of a highly preferred but economically less important plant within a commercial crop. However, a review of the literature indicates that trap cropping often fails, perhaps because of the inherent ineffectiveness of the trap plant or a lack of understanding about the ecological context in which it is placed. A potential refinement of traditional trap cropping entails having a trap crop that the insects prefer to lay their eggs on, but on which their offspring cannot survive. For the diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella, a major pest of crucifers worldwide, we are researching two “dead-end” trap crops, Barbarea vulgaris (commonly known as Yellow Rocket) and collards in which genes encoding Bt toxins have been engineered. While these plants have the intrinsic ability to function as “dead-end” trap crops, we are conducting additional ecological studies to determine the spatial and temporal requirements needed to implement them under commercial conditions.
Species 1: Lepidoptera Plutellidae Plutella xylostella (diamondback moth)
Keywords: trap crop
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