2024 Volume 66 Pages 27-36
The use of Nesidiocoris tenuis (Reuter) (Hemiptera: Miridae) for control of Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) in the late period of winter–spring greenhouse tomato cultivation was evaluated in a demonstration test in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, from 2020 to 2021. Two adjacent greenhouses were used as a control plot and an N. tenuis-introduced plot. Insect-proof nets of 0.3–0.4 mm mesh were used for roof valleys and side walls of the N. tenuis-introduced plot, and 0.8–1.0 mm mesh were used for the control plot. Given the high risk of whitefly invasion in the immediate postplanting period, nonselective insecticides and repellents were used to control whiteflies in both plots initially, then N. tenuis and banker plants were introduced to the N. tenuis-introduced plot. The noncrop plants Cleome hassleriana (Chodat) (Brassicales: Capparaceae) and Verbena × hybrida hort. ex Groenl. & Rumpler (Lamiales: Verbenaceae) were planted as banker plants. N. tenuis introduction tended to suppress the increase in B. tabaci population in spring, the end of the cropping season, and had an indirect positive effect on the suppression of whitefly-transmitted viral diseases to the same or less level than the control. These results indicated that N. tenuis and banker plants, combined with insect-proof net of 0.3–0.4 mm mesh are effective control tools against B. tabaci even in the region which is at high risk for whitefly-transmitted viral diseases.
