Publications by authors named "I M Grettenberger"

The bagrada bug, Bagrada hilaris (Burmeister), is an emerging agricultural pest in the Americas, threatening agricultural production in the southwestern United States, Mexico and Chile, as well as in the Old World (including Africa, South Asia and, more recently, Mediterranean areas of Europe). Substantive transcriptomic sequence resources for this damaging species would be beneficial towards understanding its capacity for developing insecticide resistance, identifying viruses that may be present throughout its population and identifying genes differentially expressed across life stages that could be exploited for biomolecular pesticide formulations. This study establishes B.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Pesticides are essential for protecting crops but can harm water quality and aquatic life through off-site transport; California's Central Coast relies heavily on these chemicals, leading to degraded water bodies.
  • A new regulatory program has set pesticide limits for waterway protection but does not enforce changes in pest management strategies.
  • This study evaluates the economic and environmental impacts of two pest management alternatives: one replacing high-risk insecticides with safer options and another switching to organic methods, revealing significant potential decreases in net returns for farmers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bagrada bug, Bagrada hilaris (Burmeister) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), is an invasive pest of cruciferous crops. The parasitoid Gryon aetherium Talamas (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae) is a promising biological control agent for B. hilaris because it can forage in the soil where B.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We found that vittatalactone, specifically (3R,4R)-3-methyl-4-[(1S,3S,5S)-1,3,5,7-tetramethyloctyl]oxetan-2-one, is the male-produced aggregation pheromone of the western striped cucumber beetle, Acalymma trivittatum (Mannerheim), as was previously shown for the striped cucumber beetle, Acalymma vittatum (F.) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae). A synthetic mixture containing 9% of the authentic natural pheromone, is attractive to both sexes of both species in the field, as demonstrated by trapping using baited and unbaited sticky panels in California and earlier in Maryland.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Forage alfalfa (Medicago sativa L. [Fabales: Fabaceae]) is a key agricultural commodity of the western region of the United States. The key insect pest of alfalfa, Hypera postica Gyllenhal (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), has developed resistance to the most common class of insecticide used to manage its damage.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF