Aerospace and geospatial technologies have become more accessible by researchers and agricultural practitioners, and these technologies can play a pivotal role in transforming current pest management practices in agriculture and forestry. During the past 20 years, technologies including satellites, manned and unmanned aircraft, spectral sensors, information systems, and autonomous field equipment, have been used to detect pests and apply control measures site-specifically. Despite the availability of aerospace and geospatial technologies, along with big-data-driven artificial intelligence, applications of such technologies to apple IPM have not been realized yet. Using a case study conducted at the Korea Apple Research Institute, this article discusses the advances and limitations of current aerospace and geospatial technologies that can be used for improving apple IPM.
The concept of integrated pest management (IPM) first developed in the 1950s, and the concept of economic control via pest management was established in the 1960s. Research on IPM began in the United States and Europe, and IPM studies in Korea started with citrus insects and paddy field pests following the distribution of high-yield varieties of rice. Apple IPM in Korea began with research on pest control using chemical pesticides and pesticides resistant to insect pests, studies on the ecology of insect pests and their natural enemies, and the exploitation of sex pheromones on insect pests. Since the 1990s, IPM research and field projects have been carried out simultaneously for farming households. In the 2000s, the development of pest monitoring and forecasting models centered on mating disturbances, database programs for pests, and networks for sharing information. IPM technology has expanded via the development of unmanned forecasting systems and automation technologies in the 2010s.
Ground-dwelling arthropods are important components in apple orchard providing beneficial ecological services of predation and decomposition as well as herbivory. Groundcovers are managed differentially in organic and conventional apple orchards influencing ground-dwelling arthropod assemblages. We conducted 3-year studies to assess the effects of orchard management relative to weed management on the abundance and diversity of ground-dwelling arthropods using pitfall trapping. Most arthropods were classified as higher taxonomical groups and functional feeding guilds, while carabid beetles were classified into species level. Coleoptera was the dominating taxon of all ground-dwelling arthropods. Abundance of herbivores and predators was significantly higher in organic apple orchards than conventional ones. Higher abundance and diversity of carabid beetles were found in organic orchards than in conventional orchards. The abundance of Araneae, Coleoptera, or carabid beetles was negatively correlated to weed management frequency. It was found that ground-dwelling arthropods were more influenced by weed management practices than the farming systems.
The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (Smith, 1797), originated from tropical and subtropical America is one of sporadic agricultural pests in the world. Since the moth has high migration capacity, it rapidly expanded the world distribution such as Africa in 2016, India in 2018, and East-Asian countries in 2019. In Korea, this species was firstly found at maize fields of Jeju Island, in early June 2019, and subsequently detected at many counties of Jeolla-do and Gyeongsang-do in June and July 2019. The first invaded populations of S. frugiperda in Korea were genetically confirmed as one species, S. frugiperda by using a mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene, and analyzed to be comprised of two haplotypes (hap-1 and hap-2) each belonging to different clades. Among 31 COI sequences, the hap-1 sequence was predominant, accounting for 93.5%.
A survey was conducted among pet owners visiting pet hospitals, using a pet animal app, or being involved in pet breeding, who had the awareness of and intention to purchase animal feed containing edible insects, as well as functional pet food. Results showed that 89.5% of survey participants were pet owners such as those of dogs, cats etc., of whom 55.6% knew about this type of pet food. Nearly half (48.5%) of respondents had an intention to purchase edible insect-based pet food, while the rest of them (51.5%) did not. The two main reasons for deciding to buy it were the excellent nutritional value of insects, and low allergenicity. The most significant reason for refusing purchase was a strong aversion to insects as food.
The pselaphine beetle, tribe Bythinoplectini is recorded from Korea for the first time, represented by a single species, Parapyxidicerus carinatus Sawada, 1964 previously only known from Japan. Three specimens were collected in northern part of South Korea (Gyeonggi and Gangwon Provinces) by sifting leaf litter near stream. Illustrations of a habitus, diagnostic characteristics of the tribe, genus and species, and distributional map are provided.
Pheromone-based techniques are becoming a viable strategy of insect pest management as facilitated by the exponential increase in numbers of pheromone identifications from many insect pests. This is the report on the efficacy of pheromone-mediated chemical communication disruption (PCD) technique against the Korean population of smaller clearwing moths, Synanthedon tenuis (Butler) (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae) using its female sex pheromone component, (Z, Z )-3, 13-octadecadien-1-ol. The PCD trials were carried out four times during 2016 and 2017 in persimmon orchards located at Suncheon and Jinju Cities in Korea, and the PCD efficacy was expressed as the mean differences in the seasonal catches of S. tenuis males in the PCD and control plots. The seasonal male moth catches in monitoring traps installed in the PCD plots were significantly lower as compared with those installed in the control plots. Consequently, the PCD efficacy in the experimental orchards ranged from 95.2-100% with an average efficacy of 98.8 ± 1.2%, revealing a future possibility of pheromone-based management of S. tenuis.
