To put it plainly, a pest’s life cycle is the time it takes for an egg to grow, mature, and produce new eggs. Most insects follow three definite stages in their life cycle: Growth, Maturation, and Reproduction. Once an egg is laid, it goes through a growth stage.
Why is it important to know the life cycle of a pest to effectively control it?
Success in today’s market depends on growers knowing not only the plant’s life cycle, but the life cycle of the weed, disease and insect pests common to their crop. Knowing the life cycle of a pest allows growers to control it at the most vulnerable point in the cycle, or possibly avoid it all together.
What is pest pressure?
Part of the answer lies in what I like to refer to as “pest pressure.” Pest pressure can be thought of as a simplified explanation as to the many different, and sometimes very complex, factors that may contribute towards a building or area sustaining pest activity or infestations.
What is the impact of pests to agriculture?
They have a direct impact on agricultural food production by chewing the leaves of crop plants, sucking out plant juices, boring within the roots, stems or leaves, and spreading plant pathogens. They feed on natural fibers, destroy wooden building materials, ruin stored grain, and accelerate the process of decay.
What are the effect of crop pest on yield?
Crop pests have the following effects on crop yield: Heavy attack by pests may result in total crop failure. Infected seeds, crops, and vegetables have low market value. Pests reduce the quality of crops.
What are the four stages in the life cycle of an insects?
Different animals have different life cycles. Insects fall into one of two categories depending upon their life styles: 4 stage life cycle (complete metamorphosis). The four stages are egg, larva, pupa and adult.
What is the importance of knowing the life cycle of crops?
All plants have a life cycle and this cycle is very important to agriculture. Because a major source of our food is from plants, we can classify them by their life cycle. Crops can be sorted into annuals, biennials and perennials.
What is the importance of pest management?
It provides for the protection of beneficial insects, as well as prevention of secondary pest outbreaks, pest resurgence, and the spread of disease.
What are the methods of controlling pest?
Depending on the type of pests, we can distinguish several different pest control methods which include biological pest control, mechanical pest control, physical pest control, poisoned bait, field burning, trap cropping and the use of pesticides.
Why is the concentration of pesticide so high in fish and bird species?
Insecticides are much more dangerous than herbicides, which kill plants. That is because animals are more similar to us than plants. from tiny concentrations in water up to high concentrations in fish eating birds.
Why do humans try to control pest populations?
Why do humans try to control pest populations? biological control methods will there- fore not affect non-targeted species. 18. Even if a few individuals are not harmed by the chemicals, these indi- viduals will grow and reproduce into a new population that may be resistant.
Which of the following are the goals of monitoring pests?
This is called monitoring. The primary goals are to locate, identify, and rank the severity of pest infestations. These data may also be used to project future populations through pest management models.
What are the effects of pests?
- All pests leave behind fecal matter and shed skin that can go airborne and contaminate the air you and your family breathe.
- Common pests such as cockroaches and mosquitoes spread asthma, allergy, and food contamination illnesses.
How do pest affect the environment?
Impact on environment
Pesticides can contaminate soil, water, turf, and other vegetation. In addition to killing insects or weeds, pesticides can be toxic to a host of other organisms including birds, fish, beneficial insects, and non-target plants.
What is a pest in agriculture?
Wherever agriculture has been practiced, pests have attacked, destroying part or even all of the crop. In modern usage, the term pest includes animals (mostly insects), fungi, plants, bacteria, and viruses. Human efforts to control pests have a long history.
What are the losses caused by pests in agricultural crops?
Among crops, the total global potential loss due to pests varied from about 50% in wheat to more than 80% in cotton production. The responses are estimated as losses of 26–29% for soybean, wheat and cotton, and 31, 37 and 40% for maize, rice and potatoes, respectively.
What determines the damage inflicted by the insect pest on its host?
Most damage to plants caused by insects is a result of direct feeding on above-ground and below-ground plant parts. The type of feeding damage caused by insect pests is related to the type of mouthparts of the insect (Cranshaw, 2004; Pedigo and Rice, 2006).
What are the economic importance of pest in crop production?
Insects are important for pollinating crops we use for food, as a food source themselves in some countries, and decomposing dead material to recycle nutrients. Insects are also important because of the damage they can cause to humans. Some insects spread disease; others can decimate our food supply.
Which phase in the life cycle of an insect is most destructive to plants Why?
Endopterygota (complete metamorphosis)
Often this is the most destructive stage in the lifecyle from a plant’s point of view. In its second instar the insect forms a pupa (also called a chrysalis) which then hatches into the adult (sometimes after overwintering as a pupa).
What development stage of insect is most damaging to crops?
Moths and butterflies also have a complete life cycle similar to beetles except that the damaging stage is the larvae or worm stage which usually feeds on the stems, leaves or fruits.
How do insects change?
This process of changing shape is known as metamorphosis. There are actually two ways that insects can “change shapes” by incomplete metamorphosis or by complete metamorphosis. During incomplete metamorphosis, the insects change their shape gradually each time they shed their exoskeleton.
How can the life cycles of plants be altered?
Plants alternate between diploid sporophyte and haploid gametophyte generations, and between sexual and asexual reproduction. The ability to reproduce both sexually and asexually gives plants the flexibility to adapt to changing environments. Their complex life cycle allows for great variation.
What happens in a plant life cycle?
The plant life cycle consists of four stages; seed, sprout, small plant, and adult plant. When the seed gets planted into the soil with water and sun, then it will start to grow into a small sprout.
How do plants complete their life cycle?
Plant life cycles are classified as annual, biennial, or perennial. Annuals complete their life cycle of germination from seed, growing, flowering, fruiting and dying within a single season of growth. Biennials require two seasons to complete their life cycle.
Why is pest control important in agriculture?
Without crop protection, including pesticides, more than half of the world’s crops would be lost to insects, diseases and weeds. Pesticides are important. They help farmers grow more food on less land by protecting crops from pests, diseases and weeds as well as raising productivity per hectare.
How does integrated pest management affect agriculture?
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an ecosystem approach to crop production and protection that combines different management strategies and practices to grow healthy crops and minimize the use of pesticides.
