Cheke, Robert ORCID: 0000-0002-7437-1934 (2018) New pests for old as GMOs bring on substitute pests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115:33. pp. 8239-8240. ISSN 0027-8424 (Print), 1091-6490 (Online) (doi:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1811261115)

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Abstract

In agroecological systems, one thing leads to another, often in unexpected ways. In the 1950s a single pesticide application per season was sufficient to control the jassid bug Empoasca lybica, the only major cotton pest in the Gezira of Sudan at the time (1). However, the spraying killed the natural enemies that had previously held populations of the cotton bollworm Helicoverpa armigera in check. Intensive spraying against the bollworm’s larvae during the 1970s and 1980s led to the emergence from obscurity of whiteflies, Bemisia tabaci. They became primary pests in need of further control, and then there were also outbreaks of aphids, Aphis gossypii. Faced with crippling control costs and the development by the pests of resistance to the pesticides used against them (2, 3), the Sudanese eventually resorted to the integrated pest management approach. A similar but more complicated series of events is described for the cotton fields of China in PNAS by Zhang et al. (4), but in China it is not only trophic cascades leading to new pest upsurges but also effects of land-use alterations and climate change.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Pests, Bt-Cotton, Genetic modification, pesticide
Subjects:	S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Engineering & Science Faculty of Engineering & Science > Natural Resources Institute Faculty of Engineering & Science > Natural Resources Institute > Agricultural Biosecurity Research Group Faculty of Engineering & Science > Natural Resources Institute > Agriculture, Health & Environment Department
Last Modified:	15 Aug 2018 11:39
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/21079

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