Biological and chemical control of three plant piercing - sucking insect pests on cucumber in plastic houses [electronic resource].

Includes reference.

Cucumber plants in plastic houses are usually infested with the insect pests, Thrips tabaci Lind., Aphis gossypii Glover, Bemisia tabaci (Genn.). Control of these pests was conducted by releasing the four phytoseiid mites, Neosieulus cucumeris (Oudemans), N. zaheri (Yousef & EI-Borolossy), N. califomicus (McG.) and Phytoseiulus macropilis (Banks) on two cucumber cultivars, Heikal & Sahm in the two years, 2004 and 2005 in Nubaria, Beheira Governorate, Egypt. Heikal cultivar was highly infested with the three mentioned pests, N. cucumeris reduced T. tabaci and A. gossypii populations with reduction percentages of 89.21 & 84.96% and 78.61 & 67.77% on Heikal and Sahm cultivars, respectively. N. zaheri greatly affected B. tabaci with reduction percentages of 68.45 & 90.00% on the two cultivars, respectively, during 2004 season. Chemical control with the biocide Abamectin (Vertemic) 1.8% EC and the acaricide Phenproximate (Ortus) 5% SC gave reduction percentages of 72.37 & 64.0% for T. tabaci; 75.31 & 84.73% for A. gossypii and 89.73 & 58.70% for B. tabaci, respectively on Heikal cultivar during 2004 season. Similar results were noted on Sahm cultivar. Generally, releasing the three Phytoseiid mite species gave promising results against the three plant insect pests infesting cucumber cultivars in plastic houses.

Summary in Arabic.

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