Institut für Biologischen Pflanzenschutz
The tomato leafminer, Tuta absoluta is a native insect pest to South America that is invasive to Africa and Europe, where it causes substantial yield losses to tomato production, yet control options are highly limited. Today, mainly chemical-synthetic pesticides are used for control. Alternatives are urgently needed to control T. absoluta, in both open field and green house production. Several studies have reported that biological control methods using endophytic fungi, entomopathogenic viruses and RNA interference (RNAi) may offer alternative management tools against T. absoluta. Here, this study aims at promoting the development and combination of these three different control tactics to develop an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategy which we hypothesize will significantly improve control of the tomato leafminer.
Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
