3: Biological control of industrial hemp pests in Florida greenhouses

Developing pest management systems for unique and new medicinal or edible crops is problematic because or knowledge base is limited with regards to the pests that might attack the crops and IPM compatible pesticides. Industrial hemp is very unique because Land Grant Institutions have been forbidden to work on the crop until recent years. In Florida, we are working on a number of such crops.  We approach each using a model system developed a few years ago for cucumbers. The foundation of the system was the use of banker plant systems for Tetranychus urticae, Polyphagotarsonemus latus, Bemisia tabaci (MEAM1 and MED), Aphis gossypii Glover and Scirtothrips dorsalis to name a few common pest species in Florida greenhouses. The initial step in utilizing these systems for their use in a particular cropping system is to determine if the alternate pests used in each banker plant system will not infest the crop we are trying to protect. To date we feel we can safely use our system for managing spider mite and P. latus using corn and Oligonychus pratensis as the alternate host. We also use papaya infested with Trialeurodes variabilis and Asclepius sp. infested with Aphis nerii. Each of these systems have natural enemies that attack the alternate host and the pest species we are concerned with in Hemp.  We also evaluate IPM compatible pesticides on each crop and banker plant system to determine their utility for other pests in an overall management plant. We will discuss the model system from cucumbers to illustrate our concept.
 
 
.