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Spotting the needle in a haystack: Predicting wireworm activity in top soil for integrated pest management in arable crops (ElatPro)
Project
Project code: JKI-A-08-1229, 2816ERA05L
Contract period: 01.10.2016
- 30.09.2019
Budget: 68,017 Euro
Purpose of research: Applied research
The goal of this project is to develop and implement a practical decision support system for wireworms, through through a unique collaborative research effort involving 6 European countries. Wireworms, the larvae of click beetles (Coleoptera: Elateridae), attack the below-ground parts of a wide range of crops thereby inflicting severe economic damage. Typically, wireworms damage crops when active in the upper soil layer. They migrate to deeper soil layers when soil conditions become unfavorable. Predicting the vertical movements and identifying wireworm activity in upper soil layers is crucial for the decision and timing on control measures. Recently, the prognosis model SIMAGRIO-W has been developed as a decision support system to forecast activity of agriotes wireworms based on soil moisture, temperature and soil type. Albeit successfully applied in field tests in western Germany, the model performed poorly when it was evaluated in eastern Austria. This discrepancy in the model’s performance may be due to differences in the biology between the different Agriotes species occurring in these regions. The model does not take into account other parameters which might be important drivers of wireworms’ vertical movements such as soil type and texture, species-specific movement behaviours, larval age and food preference, root availability and plant volatiles. This project directly addresses these gaps of knowledge and aims to significantly improve the current model to develop a wireworm decision support system to predict the activity of pestiferous wireworms in the topsoil across European arable land. Laboratory experiments, which will reveal how specific parameters affect larval vertical movement behaviour of abundant Agriotes species, will be combined with field surveys in potato and maize fields across several European regions. These data will be used to extend and improve the model, which will thereafter be evaluated using an independent set of field data.
Section overview
Subjects
- Crop Protection
Framework programme
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Institute for Plant Protection in Field Crops and Grassland (JKI-A)
