Using Autumnal Trap Crops to Manage Tarnished Plant Bugs ().

For insects, surviving winter depends on their capacity to store enough energy and find proper hibernation sites. A common strategy is to minimize movement and hibernate near autumn food sources. We investigated the efficiency of autumnal hosts to act as trap crops where insects could be exposed to targeted repressive treatments. This approach could reduce the local populations of insect pests in the next production season, reducing the need for insecticides. First, we tested the mullein plant's attractiveness as an autumn trap crop for (Hemiptera: Miridae) in strawberry fields by comparing peak population density among mullein (), strawberry plants ( × ), buckwheat (), and mustard (). Second, we tested four treatments applied to the autumn trap crops to reduce winter survivorship: (1) hot water, (2) a pathogen (), (3) insecticide (cypermethrin), and (4) a control. The density of the population on mullein in autumn and on buckwheat in summer was higher than on strawberry and mustard. Of the overwintering , 0% survived the winter when treated with the insecticide cypermethrin, while 38.3% survived in the control treatment (without repressive treatment). The and hot water treatments did not differ from the control. The mullein autumn trap crops combined with insecticide treatments could contribute to reducing the overwintering population, hence potentially reducing population during the following growing season.