Location: Sustainable Perennial Crops Laboratory
2018 Annual Report
Objectives
Over the next five years we will focus on the following objective:
Objective 1: Develop novel pest management technologies for control of coffee berry borer, involving the use of sesquiterpene repellents and the fungal entomopathogen Metarhizium anisopliae.
• Sub-objective 1.A. Determine the effectiveness of a recently identified sesquiterpene as a coffee berry borer repellent.
• Sub-objective 1.B. Evaluate the biological control potential of microsclerotial formulations of the fungal entomopathogen Metarhizium spp.
These objectives will integrate various components that we believe are essential to greatly improving available pest management tactics and to move the field into a new direction.
Approach
The coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei, is the most devastating insect pest of coffee worldwide. Endemic to Africa, the beetle is now present in most coffee growing regions. Since most of its life cycle is spent inside the coffee berry, it is extremely difficult to control. Recent efforts aimed at managing the coffee berry borer have focused on biological control alternatives, including the release of parasitoids and the use of fungal entomopathogens. Mass production of some parasitoids has not been optimized, and in cases where these have been imported from Africa and released in the field, results have not been promising. Delivery of fungal entomopathogens remains a major obstacle due to the cryptic nature of the insect and the difficulty and cost of spraying in coffee plantations. This project will focus on two areas that will likely result in improved control of the coffee berry borer: (1) Determining the effectiveness of a repellent in reducing infestation levels; and (2) Assessing the effectiveness of microsclerotial granules of various species of the fungal entomopathogen Metarhizium against coffee berry borers that remain inside berries that have fallen on the ground. The results of this research project will greatly contribute towards the development of novel control tactics against this important agricultural pest.
Progress Report
Progress was made on Objective 1, Subobjective 1A, which falls under National Program 304, Crop Protection and Quarantine, Component 3, Insects and Mites, Sub-component 3A: Agricultural and Horticultural Cropping Systems, Problem Statement 3A2: Systems approach to environmentally-sound pest management. Under Subobjective 1A, we published a paper reporting on a repellent shown to be effective in the field against the coffee berry borer, the most devastating insect pest of coffee worldwide. In collaboration with a scientist in Mexico, we have initiated research to test the repellent in coffee plantations in Chiapas and Veracruz. We have also continued working on one of the contingencies, i.e., investigations aimed at elucidating the behavior of the coffee berry borer using a novel technique involving placing insects on artificial insect diet within two glass plates. Recent work has shown that the coffee berry borer exhibits a few different types of behavior when other members of its family are present, but when a different insect species is placed inside the diet sandwich, the behavior drastically changes to include constant and frantic motion, aggression towards the intruder, and cessation of oviposition. Our findings have important implications for understanding the basic biology of the coffee berry borer, which might result in novel methods for its management. In addition, we have been conducting research aimed at determining whether the bacteria involved in caffeine breakdown in the coffee berry borer is transmitted from the mother to its progeny via the egg.
Accomplishments
