Occurrences and friendly environmental control effects of several insect pests on Chinese boxthorn, Lycium chinense, with organic farming in Korea

Chinese boxthorn (Lycium chinense) is cultivated for medicinal purposes in Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan. Chinese boxthorn fruit have anti-bacterial, anti-tumor, immunity improvement, antioxidants, lowering cholesterol, anti-aging and etc. In Korea, mainly cultivated areas are Cheongyang and Jindo. Recently, the organic farming of Chinese boxthorn expanded throughout these areas. However, there are no effective control agencies of insect pests without chemical synthesis insecticides for organic farming. In this study, we surveyed the occurrence of insect pests on Chinese boxthorn at organic farming area in Cheongyang from May to September, 2012. During the period of leaf formation of Chinese boxthorn in May, the green peach aphid (Myzus persicae) and the ten-spotted lema (Lema decempunctata) were serious pests. From June to July, populations of gall mite (Eriophyes macrodonis), the 28-spotted potato ladybird (Henosepilachna vigintioctomaculata) and moths of Gelechiidae (Hedma spp.) were very high. From the end of July, the injury of the brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) and the stink bug (Plautia stali) by sucking the fruit juice of Chinese boxthorn were increased. For protecting these damages from several insect pests, we tried to apply plant-extracted materials against them in organic farming of Chinese boxthorn. One of them, when the root extract of Sophora flavescens was applied to the green peach aphid and the ten-spotted lema, their control effects is better than any other friendly environmental agricultural material (FEAM).