Location: Temperate Tree Fruit and Vegetable Research
Project Number: 2092-22000-022-045-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2025
End Date: Oct 30, 2026
Objective:
Economic losses caused by insects in potato crops of the Columbia Basin are due primarily to a complex of sap-feeding insects consisting of aphids, psyllids, and leafhoppers. Their impact is due to the vectoring of plant pathogens rather than to the direct effects of feeding. Vectors arrive in potatoes from weedy plants outside of the crop field. Targeting vectors with insecticides is difficult because we often do not know when and in what numbers the pests will arrive in fields. This uncertainty points to the need for an effective monitoring program. These issues have prompted our group to search for a monitoring tool which can be used both to estimate numbers entering a field, while leaving trapped specimens in a condition suitable for molecular detection of potato pathogens. Three traps will be compared: yellow sticky card, a 3D-printed trap designed to monitor psyllids but which also captures aphids and leafhoppers, and a 3D-printed vane trap. Both printed traps collect specimens directly into preservative for molecular work.
Approach:
The three traps will be compared on the perimeters of 10 commercial potato fields in the Columbia Basin to be located by the cooperator. Traps will be monitored by the cooperator and ARS personnel for 1-week intervals in 3 periods: early- and mid-July, and early-August. Potato psyllids, beet leafhoppers, and green peach aphids will be counted. A subsample of trapped specimens will be examined for the presence of potato pathogens using molecular techniques.