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Fruit fly frenzy for pheromones in
Bangladesh
(pdf)
Cuelure,
named after the formidable melon fly
Bactrocera cucurbitae,
is a synthetic chemical compound that mimics female melon fly sex pheromones. It
was introduced to cucurbit farmers in Bangladesh only a few years ago—cucurbits
being melons, cucumbers and gourds—by the USAID-funded Integrated Pest
Management Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM CRSP) as part of an IPM
program to reduce melon fly damage to cucurbit crops.
IPM program in Bangladesh wins award
(pdf)
Innovations that greatly increased crop yields for farmers in Bangladesh have
won international acclaim for an IPM CRSP program doing research on pest
management. The Asia-Pacific Forum for Environment and Development (APFED) gave
its 2008 silver medal to the Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research
Support Program (IPM CRSP), led by Virginia Tech’s Office of International
Research, Education, and Development and supported by USAID.
Cocoa Pod Prophylactics –Life
and Death in Sulawesi
(pdf)
Cacao trees produce cocoa pods, and
cocoa—the source of chocolate—is no small thing in Indonesia. The archipelagic
nation is the world’s third largest producer of this commodity after the Ivory
Coast and Ghana. In the central island of Sulawesi alone, more than 100,000
small-scale farmers cultivate the crop on 1.2 million acres. The customary way
to battle this insect has been to use pesticides. But besides being highly
toxic, pesticides are ineffective against the pod borer. Now, with the
intervention of the Virginia Tech-led IPM CRSP, farmers are finding a way to be
more environmentally friendly by using degradable plastic bags as the
sleevingdevice.
Invasive papaya pest discovered by IPM CRSP in
Asia (pdf)
A team from the Integrated Pest Management
Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM CRSP) identified papaya mealybug at
the Bogor Botanical Gardens in West Java, Indonesia. This team collected samples
at Bogor and sent them for identification to a specialist in mealybug taxonomy
at the California Department of Agriculture, who confirmed the identification as
papaya mealybug—an unarmored scale insect found in moist, warm climates. It was
the first reported occurrence of papaya mealybug in Indonesia and Southeast
Asia.
Crop failure due to debilitating viruses creates significant financial hardship
and food insecurity for resource-poor farmers in developing countries. This can
result in cascading effects such as the inability to support children’s
education as well as the lack of resources to repay debts and purchase inputs
for the next cropping season. This hardship initiates a downward spiral of
abject poverty from which it is very difficult to escape.
Through with Thrips
(pdf)
Many an Indian farmer has knitted
her brows in dismay to see the leaves on her tomato and pepper plants turning
brown and curling up. The damage is the result of newly emerging viruses spread
by thrips—tiny insects that are almost invisible to the naked eye. Much as
mosquitoes can carry malaria, thrips can carry viruses that ravage vegetables, a
key component of diet in India.
Eggplant Grafting Transforms Life in Jessore, Bangladesh
(pdf)In a small village in western Bangladesh under the
shade of a bamboo-framed thatch roof, two women sit and work with a razor blade
and eggplant seedlings. With a deft movement of hand on plant, Shovarani Kar and
Trishna Rani Biswas are able to graft a high-yielding variety of eggplant onto
the rootstock of another variety that is resistant to a devastating soil-borne
scourge: bacterial wilt.
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