Bactericera cockerelli (tomato/potato psyllid).

B. cockerelli is one of the most destructive potato pests in the western hemisphere. It was recognized in the early 1900s that B. cockerelli had the potential to be an invasive and harmful insect, particularly in western United States and Mexico (Šulc, 1909; Crawford, 1914; Compere, 1915; 1916; Essig, 1917). By the 1920s and 1930s, B. cockerelli had become a serious and destructive pest of potatoes in most of the southwestern United States, giving rise to the description of a new disease that became known as 'psyllid yellows' (Richards, 1928; 1931; 1933; Binkley, 1929; Richards and Blood, 1933; List and Daniels, 1934; Pletsch, 1947; Wallis, 1955). In recent years, other solanaceous crops, including tomato, pepper, eggplant, tobacco and tamarillo in a number of geographic areas have suffered extensive economic losses associated with B. cockerelli outbreaks (Trumble, 2008, 2009; Munyaneza et al., 2007a, b; 2008; 2009a, b, c, d; Liefting et al., 2008; 2009; Secor et al., 2009; Espinoza, 2010; Munyaneza, 2010; Crosslin et al., 2010; Rehman et al., 2010; Crosslin et al., 2012a, b; Munyaneza, 2012). Despite being a native of North America, B. cockerelli is also found in Central America and has recently invaded New Zealand, where it has caused extensive damage to indoor and outdoor solanaceous crops (Teulon et al., 2009; Thomas et al., 2011). B. cockerelli has recently been placed on the list of quarantine pest in EPPO region (EPPO, 2012).

FUNDAMENTALS OF FOLK PROVERBS FORMED ON THE BASIS OF THE LEXICAL-SPIRITUAL GROUP OF INSECTS

This article reveals the basics of Uzbek folk paremas formed on the basis of the lexical-spiritual group of "Insects''. According to it, the Uzbek folk parems, formed on the basis of the lexical-spiritual group of "Insects'', are mostly formed by the appearance, biological characteristics, color and lifestyle of insects. It was noted that in the Uzbek folk paremas formed on the basis of insect names, paremas formed on the basis of harmful insect names are more common. The reason for this is that there are more harmful species of insects than beneficial ones, and another reason is the idea that bad people are quick to notice, indifferent to everything, indifferent to everything that does no good to those around them, rather than good people who benefit society. The Uzbek folk parems formed on the basis of the names of "Insects" are substantiated by the fact that they appear in the semaphores as a positive character-defining, moderate-character-defining, negative-character-determining factor. In Uzbek folk paremas, it is said that the names of insects serve as a means of providing imagery to express people's appearance, behavior, character, speech, just to name a few, and building a proper comparison, analogy, transfer of meaning.

New combined insecticide for potato protection

one of the most striking and well-known examples of harmful insect species that are currently classified as overdominant pests is the Colorado potato beetle: Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say. The high efficiency of the insecticide Beretta, MD (60 g/l + 40 g/l + 30 g/l) in the fight against this pest has been shown.

Integrated pest management approach to control thrips of roses

The experiment was conducted at established rose garden of Regional Agricultural Research Station, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Jashore during 2017-18 and 2018-19 winter season (November-April). The experiment was laid out in a RCBD design with three dispersed replications. Four treatment combination were as follows: T1 =IPM package-1: Mechanical control + Sticky trap (Blue and White) + weekly spray of Azadirechtin (Bio-neem plus 1EC) @ 1.0ml/L of water, T2 = IPM package-2: Mechanical control+ Sticky trap (Blue and White)+ spray of Thiamethoxam 20% (Virtako 40SC) @ 1.5 ml/L of water, T3 = IPM package-3: Mechanical control+ Sticky trap (Blue and White)+ weekly spray Chlorphenapyr (Intrepid 10EC) @ 1 ml/L of water and T4 = Farmers practice: weekly spray Imidacloprid (Imitaf 20SL) @ 0.5ml/L of water. For mechanical control hand picking was done and harmful insect also classified as the most direct and the quickest way to remove clearly visible pests. Two color stiky trap (white and blue) were set up in each line. The lowest number of rose thrips was found in IPM package 2 (6.36 in 2017-18 and 3.03 in 2018-19) and highest in farmer’s practices (14.36 in 2017-18 and 12.40 in 2018-19). The lowest percent flower infestation of rose was recorded in IPM package 2 (9.98 to 17%) and the highest in Farmers practice (19.72 to 32.66%). The highest yield (864000 no./ha in 2017-18 and 535932 no./ha) was recorded from IPM package 2 and the lowest in farmers practice (438750 no./ha in 2017-18 and 388857 no./ha). The results revealed the highest MBCR was observed in IPM package-2 (Mechanical control+ Sticky trap (Blue and White) + spray of Thiamethoxam 20% (Virtako 40SC) @ 1.5 ml/L of water.) treated plot (17.2 to 49.7) in both the year. Finally, it may be recommended that IPM package 2 is very much effective to control thrips of rose as well as high yield and more economic return. Progressive Agriculture 31 (2): 89-93, 2020

A New Species of Insect Possibly Invasive for Ornamental Plants in Romania

Following the periodic evaluations carried out in the parks of Timisoara (Timis, Romania) which had as main activity the monitoring of harmful insect species, we noticed an interesting species with the ability to jump, which attracted our attention. It has been identified as Scudderia sp. This was not found so far in the western part of Romania or in other areas of the country (to our knowledge). So we started to study it in more detail, to monitor it and to see if there are injuries on ornamental plants. The observations were made during 2019 and 2020, in five representative parks in Timisoara. The insect was reported in two parks. Both immature forms (larvae and nymphs) and adult forms were present, starting with June. The last specimens were observed at the end of September. The population level found in the parks of Timisoara is quite high and the aesthetic damage caused to ornamental plants is clear. The plants that katydids were seen feeding on, were diverse. The most affected of these (about of 30-60%) were those of rain flower, African daisy flowers and roses.

Short Communication: Frankliniella tenuicornis (Thysanoptera: Thripidae), a novel harmful insect to banana (Musa sp.) crops

Aim of study: This study aimed to record a previously unknown harmful insect to banana (Musa sp.) crops, Frankliniella tenuicornis (Uzel).Area of study: The thrips individuals were collected from banana fields located in Paphos District, Cyprus.Material and methods: Specimens of thrips were mounted in permanent microscope and identified using specialized literature. Voucher specimens are deposited in Coleção de História Natural da UFPI, Brazil. Images for species and damage recognition were obtained.Main results: The thrips causes a red-brownish discoloration at the spots where banana fruits touch each other. This cosmetic damage reduces the marketability and/or price of banana fruits. In addition, F. tenuicornis is recorded for the first time in the island of Cyprus.Research highlights: This is the first record of F. tenuicornis damaging banana crops. It constitutes the basic step for future studies in order to produce possible suitable control methods against the new phytosanitary problem.

redkmer: an assembly-free pipeline for the identification of abundant and specific X-chromosome target sequences for X-shredding by CRISPR endonucleases

CRISPR-based synthetic sex ratio distorters, that operate by shredding the X-chromosome during male meiosis, are promising tools for the area-wide control of harmful insect pest or disease vector species. However, the selection of gRNA targets, in the form of high-copy sequence repeats on the X chromosome of a given species, is difficult since such repeats are not accurately resolved in genome assemblies and can’t be assigned to chromosomes with confidence. We have therefore developed the redkmer computational pipeline, designed to identify short and highly-abundant sequence elements occurring uniquely on the X-chromosome. Redkmer was designed to use as input exclusively raw WGS data from males and females. We tested redkmer with suitable short and long read WGS data ofAn. gambiae, the major vector of human malaria, in which the X-shredding paradigm was originally developed. Redkmer establishes long reads as chromosomal proxies with excellent correlation to the genome assembly and uses them to rank X-candidate kmers for their level of X-specificity and abundance. Redkmer identified a high-confidence set of 25-mers, many of which belong to previously known X-chromosome specific repeats ofAn. gambiae, including the ribosomal gene array and the selfish genetics elements harbored within it. WGS data from a control strain in which these repeats are also present on the Y chromosome confirmed the elimination of these kmers in the filtering steps. Finally, we show that redkmer output can be linked directly to gRNA selection and can also inform gRNA off-target prediction. The redkmer pipeline is designed to enable the generation of synthetic sex ratio distorters for the control of harmful insect species of medical or agricultural importance. It proceeds from WGS input data to deliver candidate X-specific CRISPR gRNA candidate target sequences. In addition the output of redkmer, including the prediction of chromosomal origin of single-molecule long reads and chromosome specific kmers, could also be used for the characterization of other biologically relevant sex chromosome sequences, a task that is frequently hampered by the repetitiveness of sex chromosome sequence content.

Occurrence of oriental chestnut gall wasp Dryocosmus kuriphilus (Hymenoptera, Cynipidae) in Slovakia – short communication

During 2014–2016, damage by the oriental chestnut gall wasp Dryocosmus kuriphilus Yasumatsu (Hymenoptera, Cynipidae) was found on sweet chestnut trees at 4 localities in Slovakia. Dryocosmus kuriphilus is a specific plant pest on Castanea spp. In Europe it is considered as the most harmful insect pest on Castanea sativa. It is the first report of the oriental chestnut gall wasp occurrence on chestnut trees in Slovakia.