College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Engaging Students
Search for Chronic Disease Risk Factors in
Horses Leads to Clues about Prevention
Bringing New Life to an Eroding Stream
Value-added Soybeans to Save Money and Environment
Expanding the Learning Experience
Crossing Traditional Boundaries of Science
To Find Health Solutions
Hobby-size Planes May Be Future of
Early Warning System
Improving Local Economies Through Agritourism
Incentive Payments May Reduce Phosphorus Pollution
Protecting Milk’s Flavor and Nutritional Value
Finding a Healthful and Environmentally Friendly Use For Peanut Skins
Supporting Virginia’s Expanding Wine Industry
Virginia Tech Reaches Top 10 in Agricultural Research
Entrepreneurship Education Puts Business Owners in the Express Lane
E-learning Option for Place-bound Professionals
Financial Planning – From the Farm to the Household
New Graduate Program to Train Faculty in Agricultural Education Fields
Farmers’ Markets from Diverse Communities Benefit from Sharing
Families, Food, and Fun
Developing Disease-free Mosquitoes
Mites Make Right in Honduras – or Not?
Help for the Hippos of Zambia
Mites Make Right in Honduras – or Not?
After being bitten by a mosquito or getting a paper cut we’ve all thought,“How can something so small be such an annoyance?” In Honduras, a tiny spider mite is having just such an outsize impact on the cultivation of strawberries, a valuable export crop there.
The cyclamen mite, Phytonemus pallidus, is so small that it requires a hand lens to see it. Like a tiny vampire, the mite attacks strawberry plants, bruising cells with its small, whiplike mouthparts and ingesting the sap. The mite leaves the upper leaf surface wrinkled, with veins bulging up like blisters and a bushy appearance due to damaged stems. Once the leaf is eaten, the strawberry plant does not have the requisite energy from photosynthesis to produce fruit. So, damaged leaves mean no strawberries. Honduran farmers’ customary way of dealing with this pest has been to dip the planting material – the crowns – in a mite killing solution. While this eliminates one problem, the mite, it creates another: an accumulation of pesticide residue in the strawberries themselves.
Scientists with the U.S. Agency for International Development-supported Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program have explored a variety of techniques to avoid toxic pesticides and have come up with a novel solution. By dipping the crowns for 30 minutes in water heated to 43°C (109°F), the scientists discovered that the plants remained free of the destructive mites for 26 weeks in the field – long enough for plants to grow to maturity and be harvested.
As added security against the phytophagous (plant-feeding) mites, the researchers introduced some predaceous (in this case, mite-eating) mites into the fields. These mites ensure that there won’t be any plantfeeding mites around to damage the strawberry plants.
“Our studies are encouraging,” says Jeff Alwang, professor of agricultural and applied economics and lead researcher on the Virginia Tech-led project. “The total marketable yield of the thermally treated plants was significantly higher than the control groups. And the cost of production using thermally treated planting material is considerably less,” he adds.
 |
| cyclamen mite |