- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
At a recent visit to the UC Davis Ecological Garden at the Student Farm, we watched a honey bee, Apis mellifera, and a lygus bug nymph, Lygus hesperus, foraging on a batchelor button, Centaurea cyanus.
The bee: the beneficial insect.
The lygus bug or Western tarnished plant bug: a pest.
The lygus bug, which punctures plant tissues with its piercing mouthparts, was there first, but no matter. The bee joined in, edging closer and closer until they touched.
In photography insect circles, that's a "two-for"--two insects in one image.
The bee finally buzzed off, leaving the lygus bug to "dine" alone.
The lygus bug, distinguished by a conspicuous triangle on its back, is a very serious pest of cotton, strawberries and seed crops, including alfalfa. Scientists estimate that in California alone, the pest causes $30 million in damage to cotton plants each year, and at least $40 million in losses to the state's strawberry industry. The insect is also a pest of numerous fruits and vegetables, including apples, pears, peaches, eggplant, tomato, potato, artichoke, lettuce, sugarbeet, and beans. See what the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM), says about the pest.
What do they look like? "Adult lygus bugs are green, straw yellow, or brown with a conspicuous yellow or pale green triangle on their backs," UC IPM says. "Nymphs are light green...Lygus can move into gardens or orchards from weeds, especially when they dry up. They are a particular problem in beans, strawberries, and orchard crops, feeding on developing flower buds and fruit. Fruit may become blemished and discolored, deformed, or twisted and may develop depressions or pustules."
Cotton? "Lygus bugs," says UC IPM, "migrate to cotton from other hosts, so management of this pest begins with assessing its populations outside the field. Check for them on weeds, in nearby alfalfa, and in other crops, and keep in touch with your pest control adviser, Extension agent or Farm Advisor for area-wide information on lygus bug populations. Proper management of alfalfa harvest can reduce damaging migrations to cotton."
Cooperative Extension specialist Ian Grettenberger, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, works closely with farmers in their lygus bug battles.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Agricultural entomologist Emily Bick is targeting you.
Lygus hesperus, a serious pest of strawberries--as well as cotton, and seed crops such as alfalfa--causes an estimated $40 million in annual losses to California's strawberry industry.
Bick, who received her doctorate in entomology last year from UC Davis and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Copenhagen, is a newly selected recipient of an American Association of University Women (AAUW) American Publishing Grant and her subject is the lygus bug immigration and aggregation in California strawberries.
The $6000 grant is designed to support women over a two-month period in the summer as they prepare a solo-authored manuscript.
Bick's application focused on her scientific modeling work that originated from her Ph.D. program. Her application detailed the academic women who supported her career, including one of her mentors, Cornell University entomology professor Laura Harrington. Additionally, women students she mentored while at UC Davis provided letters of support.
“Prior to receiving this good news, my fiancé, Nora Forbes, and I decided to get married in the historic home of the AAUW in St. Paul, Minn.,” Bick said. “We are both aware of AAUW's legacy of supporting women in their academic pursuits since 1881 and wanted to celebrate in a location in line with their pioneering vision.” Forbes is a statistician at the Danish Medtronic office.
Earlier this year, Bick received a $23,000 fellowship from the American Scandinavian Foundation for her proposal, "Designing Pest-Resilient Apple Orchards Using Bespoke Models." The project will start immediately following the AAUW grant.
As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Copenhagen, the UC Davis alumnus is a member of Professor Lene Sigsgaard's research team. She received a $244,000 postdoctoral grant from the Danish Innovations Fund to estimate insect population dynamics in relation to FaunaPhotonics's LIDAR insect sensor. LIDAR stands for light detection and ranging.
Emily's entomological journey began at Cornell University, where she received her bachelor's degree in entomology in 2013. She then received two degrees in entomology from UC Davis: her master's degree in 2017 and her doctorate in 2019.
Bick, who specializes in integrated pest management, helped anchor the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's Linnaean Games Team that won the national championship at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting in 2016, and the University of California (UC Davis and UC Berkeley) Linnaean Games Team that won the national championship in 2018. The Linnaean Games, launched in 1983, are lively question-and-answer, college bowl-style competitions on entomological facts and played by winners of the ESA branch competitions. The teams score points by correctly answering random questions. (Watch the championship game on YouTube).
While at UC Davis, Bick served as vice president of the UC Davis Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA). ESA honored her as a Board-Certified Entomologist in 2014, and the Student Certification Award in 2018. She served as an emergency medical technician from 2008 to 2017.
- Author: Shimat Joseph
- Author: Mark Bolda
Lygus bug (Lygus hesperus) (Fig. 1) is a major pest of strawberry in the Central Coast. Lygus bug populations develop on weed hosts surrounding the strawberry fields such as wild radish, common groundsel, lupines, and mustards (Zalom et al. 2012). Time to time, adults migrate into the strawberry fields and lay eggs. Eggs hatch, and molt through five nymphal stages before molting into adults. Lygus bug feeding on the developing embryos affects the normal development of tissues surrounding the embryo (Handley and Pollard 1993) and affected fruits are misshapen often referred as “catfaced fruit” (Fig. 2) which are deemed unmarketable. Although both nymphs and adults can cause catface injury, nymphs are considered more destructive than adults. The young fruits up to ~10 days after petal fall are considered vulnerable to economic injury from lygus bug feeding (Zalom et al. 2012).
Chemical control continues to be an effective tool for lygus bug control and growers are always seeking effective and softer insecticides for its control. A replicated trial comparing the efficacy of insecticide treatments against lygus bug was conducted in first-year strawberry ‘San Andreas' in Watsonville, CA in 2016. The details on insecticide products and rates used in the trial are shown in Table 1. The insecticides were applied twice at 10 day interval using commercial tractor mounted sprayer. The water volume used for both the applications was 150 gal per acre and was applied at 140 psi. Dyne-Amic (surfactant) was added at 0.25% v/v to all the treatments. Insect samples were collected using regular sized Rubbermaid container by hitting 20 flowering strawberry plants with lid. In addition, 60 fruits were sampled from each plot to determine catface injury.
Pre-count sample did not show any difference in number of adult and nymphal lygus bugs among treatments (Figs. 3 and 4). Overall, all the insecticide treatments reduced the number of lygus bug adults and nymphs compared with untreated plants. The combination treatments using pyrethroid insecticides such as Danitol and Brigade suppressed lygus bugs and general predators such as bigeyed bug, minute pirate bug, and damsel bug as well as spiders (Figs. 5-8). Data show that reduced-risk insecticides, Rimon and Beleaf suppressed lygus bug nymphs as well. Sequoia, not yet registered on strawberry, provided a decent lygus bug control. Sivanto initially provided a good suppression of adults and nymphs but could not adequately sustain the control for more than a week. Two rates of Avaunt (unregistered insecticide on strawberry) was included in this experiment and were comparable to other effective insecticides in this experiment.
Insecticide use certainly reduced catface injury on strawberry fruit. Number of fruits with catface injury was lower in all the insecticide treated plants than untreated except the lower rate of Avaunt (Fig. 9). Catface injury on fruits treated with Sequoia was lower than untreated but not different from other insecticides (except lower rate of Avaunt).
References
Handley, D. T., and J. E. Pollard. 1993. Microscopic examination of tarnished plant bug (Heteroptera: Miridae) feeding damage to strawberry. J. Econ. Entomol. 86: 505-510.
Zalom, F. G., M. P. Bolda, S. K. Dara, and S. Joseph. 2012. Strawberry: Lygus bug. UC Pest Management Guidelines, UC ANR Publication 3468.http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r734300111.html
- Author: Shimat Villanassery Joseph
- Author: Mark Bolda
Lygus bug (Lygus hesperus) (Fig. 1) is a major pest of strawberry in the Central Coast. Lygus bug populations develop on weed hosts surrounding the strawberry fields such as wild radish, common groundsel, lupines, and mustards (Zalom et al. 2012). Time to time, adults migrate into the strawberry fields and lay eggs. Eggs hatch, and molt through five nymphal stages before molting into adults. Lygus bug feeding on the developing embryos affects the normal development of tissues surrounding the embryo (Handley and Pollard 1993) and affected fruits are misshapen often referred as “catfaced fruit” (Fig. 2) which are deemed unmarketable. Although both nymphs and adults can cause catface injury, nymphs are considered more destructive than adults. The young fruits up to ~10 days after petal fall are considered vulnerable to economic injury from lygus bug feeding (Zalom et al. 2012).
Chemical control continues to be an effective tool for lygus bug control and growers are always seeking effective and softer insecticides for its control. A replicated trial comparing the efficacy of insecticide treatments against lygus bug was conducted in first-year strawberry ‘San Andreas' in Watsonville, CA in 2016. The details on insecticide products and rates used in the trial are shown in Table 1. The insecticides were applied twice at 10 day interval using commercial tractor mounted sprayer. The water volume used for both the applications was 150 gal per acre and was applied at 140 psi. Dyne-Amic (surfactant) was added at 0.25% v/v to all the treatments. Insect samples were collected using regular sized Rubbermaid container by hitting 20 flowering strawberry plants with lid. In addition, 60 fruits were sampled from each plot to determine catface injury.
Pre-count sample did not show any difference in number of adult and nymphal lygus bugs among treatments (Figs. 3 and 4). Overall, all the insecticide treatments reduced the number of lygus bug adults and nymphs compared with untreated plants. The combination treatments using pyrethroid insecticides such as Danitol and Brigade suppressed lygus bugs and general predators such as bigeyed bug, minute pirate bug, and damsel bug as well as spiders (Figs. 5-8). Data show that reduced-risk insecticides, Rimon and Beleaf suppressed lygus bug nymphs as well. Sequoia, not yet registered on strawberry, provided a decent lygus bug control. Sivanto initially provided a good suppression of adults and nymphs but could not adequately sustain the control for more than a week. Two rates of Avaunt (unregistered insecticide on strawberry) was included in this experiment and were comparable to other effective insecticides in this experiment.
Insecticide use certainly reduced catface injury on strawberry fruit. Number of fruits with catface injury was lower in all the insecticide treated plants than untreated except the lower rate of Avaunt (Fig. 9). Catface injury on fruits treated with Sequoia was lower than untreated but not different from other insecticides (except lower rate of Avaunt).
References
Handley, D. T., and J. E. Pollard. 1993. Microscopic examination of tarnished plant bug (Heteroptera: Miridae) feeding damage to strawberry. J. Econ. Entomol. 86: 505-510.
Zalom, F. G., M. P. Bolda, S. K. Dara, and S. Joseph. 2012. Strawberry: Lygus bug. UC Pest Management Guidelines, UC ANR Publication 3468. http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r734300111.html
- Author: Shimat Villanassery Joseph
The western tarnished plant bug or commonly referred as lygus bug (Lygus hesperus) has emerged as a serious pest of celery in the Central Coast. The mouthparts of lygus bug, often referred as piercing-sucking, consists of four stylets. Lygus bug uses these stylets to probe host plants and feeds on the plant fluids. When lygus bug feeds, it inserts the stylets into the injured site. Once stylets are inserted, they pre-orally digest the meristematic tissue and the slurry of digested tissue is ingested.
Injury caused by lygus bug on celery seedlings and mature plants is not completely understood. Red to brown elongated lesions are suspected as to be lygus bug feeding injuries on both young seedlings and mature plants. Also, in the greenhouse, celery seedlings suffer severe stunting or poor plant growth which is often suspected to be attributed to lygus bug feeding injury. Thus, a study was conducted in 2015 to confirm injury caused by lygus bug.
In Central Coast, lygus bug develops on weed hosts such as wild radish,common groundsel,lupines , milk thistle and mustards (Brassica spp.) surrounding the production fields, ditches, and roadways (Zalom et al. 2012). As weed hosts senesce, lygus bug adults tend to leave them, seeking food, water and shelter elsewhere including seedlings in greenhouses and mature plants in fields. The invading female lygus bug settle on celery plants to feed and lay eggs. A lygus bug female lay 161 eggs (mean) at 80 F (Mueller and Stern 1973). Lygus bugs on celery are primarily managed using pyrethroid (such as permethrin or zeta-cypermethrin) and carbamate (methomyl or oxamyl) insecticides. Thus, proper early diagnosis of lygus bug feeding injury is critical in determining the need of insecticide use and application timing for its control.
The two major injury types noticed with lygus bug adult exposure to celery seedlings were dead necrotic tissues at the crown region (Figs. 1-4) and dead elongated lesions on the petiole (Figs. 5-8).
Lygus bug feeding injury as dead necrotic tissue was found at the crown area of the celery seedling. Research show that the incidence of injury in the crown area increases with the number of lygus bug adults and longer intervals of exposure (~7 days). If lygus bug invade celery plants in the greenhouse and remain for more than a day, extensive feeding injury at the crown area can be detected. Possibly, they use the cracks and crevices in the soil to hide and move from the soil directly to feed at the crown area.
Another type of injury found on the celery is elongated lesions on the petiole (less than 0.5 inch). It is likely that elongated lesions are related to lygus bug egg laying. When a female lygus bug initiates egg laying on petiole, it lays most of the eggs in aggregated manner on a given site rather than moving around and depositing eggs singly at various sites on the petiole. This egg laying pattern is further contributing to development of elongated lesion on petiole. Moreover, there were more elongated lesions when higher number of adults were exposed for a shorter interval (< 12 h). If females move into the greenhouse or field, they can quickly lay eggs and trigger elongated lesions on the celery petiole.
Thus, egg laying on petioles can develop into elongated lesions. Monitoring greenhouse or field is critical to reduce establishment of lygus bug population for a timely management. Feeding injury can develop if the plants are not managed after detection of incoming adults in the greenhouse. Growers often see a lot of lygus bug nymphs which suggest that adults already moved in and laid eggs.
Please find the peer-reviewed article for further reading. http://cemonterey.ucanr.edu/files/240312.pdf
References
Mueller, A. J., and Stern, V. M. 1973. Effects of temperature on the reproductive rate, maturation, longevity, and survival of Lygus hesperus and L. elisus (Hemiptera: Miridae). Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 66: 593-597.
Zalom, F. G., M. P. Bolda, S. K. Dara, and S. Joseph 2012. Strawberry: Lygus bug. UC Pest Management Guidelines, UC ANR Publication 3468. http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r734300111.html (accessed on 14 February 2016).