Pest control: Wicked weeds may be agricultural angels

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-11/cu-pcw111116.php

Public Release: 11-Nov-2016
Pest control: Wicked weeds may be agricultural angels
Cornell University

Farmers looking to reduce reliance on pesticides, herbicides and other pest management tools may want to heed the advice of Cornell agricultural scientists: Let nature be nature - to a degree.

"Managing crop pests without fully understanding the impacts of tactics - related to resistance and nontarget plants or insects - costs producers money," said Antonio DiTommaso, professor of soil and crop science and lead author of a new study, "Integrating Insect, Resistance and Floral Resource Management in Weed Control Decision-Making," in the journal Weed Science (October-December 2016).

"We are taking a renewed look at a holistic, sustainable integrated pest management (IPM) approach," DiTommaso said.

In corn production, for example, maintaining a few villainous milkweed plants in the middle of a cornfield may help minimize crop loss from the destructive European corn borer. The milkweed plants can harbor aphids (destructive sap-sucking flies) that produce a nectar food source for beneficial parasitic wasps Trichogramma. The wasps, in turn, lay eggs inside the eggs of the European corn borer, killing the corn borer eggs - reducing damage to the crop.

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One additional side benefit for having a few milkweed plants in a field of corn is that it serves as a breeding place and food source for monarch butterflies. As of late, monarch numbers are down, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is evaluating a petition to have them protected under the Endangered Species Act.

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