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Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2020

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Abstract

In Norway, strawberry producers use cereal straw mulching to prevent berries from contacting the soil and to control weeds. We hypothesized that organic matter such as straw mulch also favors the maintenance of predatory mites which visit strawberry plants at nighttime. We compared mite diversity in cereal straw exposed for different periods in strawberry fields and evaluated their possible migration to plants in two experiments with potted plants in 2019. An ‘Early season’ experiment compared no mulching (T1), oat straw mulch exposed in field since 2018 (T2), or 2017 (T3), while a ‘Mid-season’ experiment compared no mulching (T1), barley straw mulch from 2018 (T2), or a mix from 2017 and 2018 (T3). To provide edaphic predatory mites with a potential source of food, all plants were infested with two-spotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae Koch). Results suggested that straw mulch facilitates the prevalence of predatory mites in strawberry fields. Most predatory mite visits were at night, confirming our initial hypothesis. Predominant nocturnal mites on leaves belonged to Melicharidae (Proctolaelaps sp.) (‘Early season’, T2), Blattisociidae (Lasioseius sp.) (‘Early and Mid-season’, T3) and Phytoseiidae (‘Mid-season’, T2). Parasitus consanguineus Oudemans & Voigts was the predominant species (‘Early season’, T3) at the base of plants. Anystidae were diurnal visitors only (‘Mid-season’, T2). Future studies should evaluate the predation potential of Proctolaelaps sp. and Lasioseius sp. on two-spotted spider mite and other strawberry pests.

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Understanding the detailed timing of crop phenology and their variability enhances grain yield and quality by providing precise scheduling of irrigation, fertilization, and crop protection mechanisms. Advances in information and communication technology (ICT) provide a unique opportunity to develop agriculture-related tools that enhance wall-to-wall upscaling of data outputs from point-location data to wide-area spatial scales. Because of the heterogeneity of the worldwide agro-ecological zones where crops are cultivated, it is unproductive to perform plant phenology research without providing means to upscale results to landscape-level while safeguarding field-scale relevance. This paper presents an advanced, reproducible, and open-source software for plant phenology prediction and mapping (PPMaP) that inputs data obtained from multi-location field experiments to derive models for any crop variety. This information can then be applied consecutively at a localized grid within a spatial framework to produce plant phenology predictions at the landscape level. This software runs on the ‘Windows’ platform and supports the development of process-oriented and temperature-driven plant phenology models by intuitively and interactively leading the user through a step-by-step progression to the production of spatial maps for any region of interest in sub-Saharan Africa. Maize (Zea mays L.) was used to demonstrate the robustness, versatility, and high computing efficiency of the resulting modeling outputs of the PPMaP. The framework was implemented in R, providing a flexible and easy-to-use GUI interface. Since this allows for appropriate scaling to the larger spatial domain, the software can effectively be used to determine the spatially explicit length of growing period (LGP) of any variety.

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Field trapping experiments were carried out in Norway to measure attraction of the cherry bark tortrix (CBT) Enarmonia formosana to volatile blends of candidate compounds including acetic acid (AA), linalool oxide pyranoid (LOXP), 2-phenylethanol (PET), pear ester (E,Z)2,4-ethyl decadienoate (PE) and (E)-β-farnesene (BF). The binary blend of AA and LOXP caught the highest number of CBT adults. While addition of PET along with PE did not significantly change the attraction, a sex-dependent decrease of female captures was found when LOXP was replaced by PET/PE. Male attraction to AA/LOXP did not differ when PET/PE were added to the blend or when LOXP was substituted by the same two compounds. A similar attraction to blank traps was recorded for the ternary blend of LOXP/PET/PE, for the binary blend of PET/PE and for LOXP alone, supporting AA as a possible fundamental component of CBT kairomone. In addition, a lower number of bycatches of Hedya nubiferana, Anthophila fabriciana, Synanthedon myopaeformis, Pammene spp. and Pandemis spp. were scored in the AA/LOXP than in any blend including AA/PET/PE. BF was not behaviourally active on CBT in our field experiments. The high attraction of both sexes of CBT to the binary blend of AA/LOXP represents a first step towards the identification of a multicomponent kairomone for this pest. A continuous flight activity of both sexes of CBT was recorded from the end of May until the beginning of August, supporting the hypothesis that CBT is univoltine in Norway. Because larval infestation on tree trunks varies substantially with apple varieties, we encourage the collection of additional data to attempt a correlation between adult catch by AA/LOXP traps and the following larval population.

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Root-associated entomopathogenic fungi (R-AEF) indirectly infuence herbivorous insect performance. However, host plant-R-AEF interactions and R-AEF as biological control agents have been studied independently and without much attention to the potential synergy between these functional traits. In this study, we evaluated behavioral responses of cabbage root fies [Delia radicum L. (Diptera: Anthomyiidae)] to a host plant (white cabbage cabbage Brassica oleracea var. capitata f. alba cv. Castello L.) with and without the R-AEF Metarhizium brunneum (Petch). We performed experiments on leaf refectance, phytohormonal composition and host plant location behavior (behavioral processes that contribute to locating and selecting an adequate host plant in the environment). Compared to control host plants, R-AEF inoculation caused, on one hand, a decrease in refectance of host plant leaves in the near-infrared portion of the radiometric spectrum and, on the other, an increase in the production of jasmonic, (+)-7-iso-jasmonoyl-l-isoleucine and salicylic acid in certain parts of the host plant. Under both greenhouse and feld settings, landing and oviposition by cabbage root fy females were positively afected by R-AEF inoculation of host plants. The fungal-induced change in leaf refectance may have altered visual cues used by the cabbage root fies in their host plant selection. This is the frst study providing evidence for the hypothesis that R-AEF manipulate the suitability of their host plant to attract herbivorous insects.

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This study provides a multi-attribute approach to support decisions by Norwegian crop farmers considering adopting innovative crop protection measures. In modelling choice among pest management strategies, we have accounted for both economic risks, risks to human health and risks to the environment. We used the Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique (SMART) to evaluate the results of a field trial comparing four different pest management strategies. In the trial, various pre-crops in year one were followed by two consecutive years of winter wheat. Two treatments had different levels of integrated pest management (IPM). IPM1 was the most innovative treatment and used less pesticides (i.e. herbicides, insecticides and fungicides) than IPM2. The third treatment (‘Worst Case’, WC) used pesticides routinely. The fourth treatment (‘No Plant Protection’, NPP) used no plant protection measures except one reduced dose of herbicide per year on winter wheat. Two main attributes were included in the SMART analysis, an economic indicator and a pesticide load indicator, each of which comprised a number of attributes at a subsidiary level. The results showed that the IPM1 and NPP strategies performed better than IPM2 and the WC strategies. However, the ranking of the pest management practices depended on the weighting of the two main attributes. Although the SMART analysis gave ordinal utility values, permitting only ranking of the alternatives, we were able to transform the results to measure financial differences between the alternatives.

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Although it is well known that insects are sensitive to temperature, how they will be affected by ongoing global warming remains uncertain because these responses are multifaceted and ecologically complex. We reviewed the effects of climate warming on 31 globally important phytophagous (plant‐eating) insect pests to determine whether general trends in their responses to warming were detectable. We included four response categories (range expansion, life history, population dynamics, and trophic interactions) in this assessment. For the majority of these species, we identified at least one response to warming that affects the severity of the threat they pose as pests. Among these insect species, 41% showed responses expected to lead to increased pest damage, whereas only 4% exhibited responses consistent with reduced effects; notably, most of these species (55%) demonstrated mixed responses. This means that the severity of a given insect pest may both increase and decrease with ongoing climate warming. Overall, our analysis indicated that anticipating the effects of climate warming on phytophagous insect pests is far from straightforward. Rather, efforts to mitigate the undesirable effects of warming on insect pests must include a better understanding of how individual species will respond, and the complex ecological mechanisms underlying their responses.

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BACKGROUND Pollen beetles are key pests in oilseed rape (OSR) production. These beetles use visual and olfactory cues to locate their host plants at specific phenological stages, hence trap cropping may represent an alternative pest control strategy. In this study, a trap crop strategy for spring OSR was developed. To elaborate such a trap cropping system, a pest control measure that eradicates the attracted beetles in the trap crop before they migrate further into the main crop was included in the final trap cropping strategy. RESULTS Testing yellow‐flowering turnip rape and one yellow‐ and two cream‐coloured flowering OSR cultivars as potential crops in different trap cropping strategies, we found that pollen beetles clearly preferred turnip rape over the cream‐coloured and yellow OSR cultivars, and preferred the yellow OSR cultivar over the two cream‐coloured cultivars. This behaviour was related to the plant growth stage and associated volatile and colour signals of the tested cultivars. Using turnip rape as a trap crop and testing kairomone‐ or insecticide‐assisted trap cropping as the pest control strategy was as effective as compared with whole fields treated with a standard pesticide. CONCLUSION Combining a turnip rape cultivar as trap crop with kairomone traps placed in the trap crop as a killing agent may enable renunciation of pesticides in spring OSR production. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry