Apple breeders have created crisp, juicy and tasty fruits, but the limited varieties leave crops vulnerable to diseases, pests and climate change. Introducing new traits could improve crop resilience.
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Articles on Crop pests
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Gluttonous caterpillars are excellent crop pests — their kidneys perform several tasks that allow them to grow rapidly, while eating plants.
Currently, outbreaks are managed using chemical pesticides or an insect fungus. Neither is a good option.
Farmers should use biopesticides - naturally occurring substances that kill pests such as the fall armyworm - instead of using pesticides, which are often highly toxic.
An AC/DC-loving biologist tests the band’s 1980 assertion that “rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution.” Turns out it can be – and the negative effects of noise can ripple through an ecosystem.
US farmers are planting more and more acres with seeds coated with neonicotinoid pesticides. An ecologist explains why this approach is overkill and may be doing more harm than good.
Aphids often appear in swarms around May and June but what risk do they pose to plants?
The beetle and the fungus have devastated trees in California in the US as well as in Israel. Now they’re in South Africa.
Agricultural pests are one of the key factors affecting small holder farmer production. Focus is normally put on invertebrate pests, but rodents can do severe damage to crops as well.
A combination of armyworms native to Africa and those normally found in the Americas are ravaging crops in sub-Saharan Africa.
Top contributors
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Professor at the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University
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Associate lecturer, University of Venda
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Professor of Ecology, Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich
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Associate Professor, University of Pretoria
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Associate Professor of Entomology and Extension Specialist, Penn State
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Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Newcastle University
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Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Mississippi State University
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Lecturer in Integrated Crop Management, University of Neuchâtel
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Associate Professor, University of Graz
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NSERC and McCall MacBain Postdoctoral Fellow; Sessional Lecturer; oCUBE Communications Committee Chair, McMaster University
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Postdoctoral fellow, Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University
