Join the Network of Soil-Pest Experts

The network of soil-pest experts aims to establish:

An electronic compilation of data related to the management of subterranean pests and documenting their occurrence and biological control agents. These data provide information about the agroecological conditions (e.g., altitude, relative humidity, precipitation, and GPS coordinates) of the sites where these species are present, the crop they are associated with, and damage levels.

• A Web site for information, dissemination, and systemization of names, institutions, activities, and publications of the participants.
• A directory of researchers specializing in tropical American soil pests.
• A methodological compilation and evaluation for research on soil biota.
• A list of the pertinent literature.
• Links with the biopesticide industry.

If you want to join our network, please sent a message to the the community administrator Andreas Gaigl (a.gaigl@cgiar.org).

Research Highlights

We conducted a survey to identify key soil pest species in various departments of Colombia. Important pests included white grubs that attack potatoes and pastures such as Clavipalpus pos. ursinus in Cundinamarca and Phyllophaga obsoleta in Antioquia, and Phyllophaga menetriesi in Risaralda and Quindío, which attacks cassava, coffee, and maize. Findings also suggest that Ancognatha scarabaeoides, an abundant species in Cundinamarca, is more of a recycler of organic material than a pest as such. We also isolated hundreds of entomopathogenic organisms as potential microbial control agents of soil pests. We expect these findings to help in developing future control strategies.

Project Description

Subterranean pests—their study now forms a new component in CIAT’s Integrated Pest and Disease Management (IPDM) Project.

Why study these Pests?

White grubs and the burrower bug (Cyrtomenus bergi Froeschner), which feed on the roots of tropical crops, have become major pests during the last 20 years. Reasons for their having become so include diminished agrobiodiversity that favored their development, soil degradation, and excessive application of synthetic pesticides that depleted the ranks of their natural enemies.

What We Want to Do

Our immediate aims are to reduce crop losses caused by subterranean pests, and discover appropriate integrated pest management (IPM) strategies for their effective control.

By achieving these aims, we hope to also achieve other, more indirect, objectives. These are to reduce environmental degradation caused by excessive use of pesticides, and to transfer knowledge and technology for pest and disease management to farmers, extension workers, and other interested parties.

Organizing the IPM Project for Subterranean Pests

Hampering the control of these pests is our lack of knowledge about them and how to manage them. Compounding the problem is the great diversity of white grub species. We have therefore divided the component into two phases, the aims of which are as follows:

Phase I:  Diagnostic and strategic research

• Set up a network of scientists involved in soil arthropod research, and include the electronic compilation of relevant data, a communication network, and website.

• Diagnose problems from the farmers’ perspective and identify local existing knowledge and farming practices.

• Describe pest problems, for example, taxonomically identify white grub species, discover methods for rapidly identifying larvae, determine distribution and occurrence of species, and estimate yield losses and damage.

• Characterize the biology and behavior of soilborne pests, including the life cycles and population dynamics of principal species.

• Characterize potential biological control agents, that is, search for natural enemies, identify and propagate them, and make laboratory evaluations of their effectiveness for biological control.

Phase II:  Applied research and implementation

• Deploy natural enemies as biological control agents, that is, evaluate and validate promising control agents (e.g., nematodes, fungi, bacteria, predators, and parasites) in the field.
• With the participation of farmers, evaluate and adapt those farming practices that best control the pests, such as intercropping with repellent or attractant plant species.
• Through training, strengthen and enhance the capacity of national agricultural research systems (NARS), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), extension workers, and farmers to handle these pests.

Expecting Positive Results from the Project

First and foremost, we expect small to medium-scale farmers of major tropical crops such as cassava, maize, peanuts, beans, potatoes, and onions in Latin America to benefit from increased crop yields. By adopting a farmer participatory research approach, we hope to greatly enhance the probability of farmers adopting newly developed integrated control technologies. Such a research approach will let us examine and understand local farming and knowledge systems, and the larger context within which they exist, thus develop appropriate technologies that meet the needs and priorities of farmers and other interested parties.

We also expect to enhance CIAT’s strategic research expertise, and the NARS’ capacity for research and technology transfer. Close links between the extension services of CIAT, NARS, and NGOs will ensure an excellent platform from which to successfully implement integrated management strategies (i.e., strategies of biological control, farming practices, and other control methods) for subterranean pests.

Because of the white grubs’ worldwide distribution, this research component will not only allow the development of integrated control strategies for subterranean pests in South and Central America, but also in other tropical regions.

Finally, this component gives Colombian students the chance to participate in research activities and to have the opportunity for receiving undergraduate and graduate training in the biological control of pests.

An Administrative Strategy for the Project

The IPDM Project will execute this research component, with intellectual support from the Hillsides Project, the Entomology Units of the Bean, Cassava, and Forages Projects, and the Participatory Research in Agriculture (IPRA) Project. Under CIAT’s coordination, GOs and NGOs will also conduct research adapted to specific local conditions.

Research activities will consist of laboratory experiments, surveys, and controlled field trials at CIAT’s experiment station.

In Phase I, the pest complex will be identified and key pest species described. Yield losses and crop damage will be defined.   Methodologies will be developed to identify the complex of entomopathogens and evaluate the efficacy of promising species to control the pests. Studies on farming practices that reduce pest attack will be initiated, including participatory diagnosis to identify the problem and its magnitude from farmers’ perspectives.  Existing local knowledge and farming practices used to control and manage pest attack will also be identified.

Phase II, in contrast, will be characterized by the application of farmer participatory research (FPR) approaches and structures (such as Farmer Field Schools, Local Agricultural Research Committees, and other interest groups) to test, evaluate, and adapt selected integrated control techniques with farmers. The capacity of NARS, NGOs, extension workers, and farmers will be strengthened through training.

Our Partners

CIAT

The Center has multidisciplinary research teams in agronomy, physiology, entomology, germplasm development, and economics. In particular, because of its experiences in on-farm and farmers’ participatory methodology and its established collaboration with NARS, the Hillside Project will help facilitate farmers’ integration into the research. CIAT also has facilities, including entomological research laboratories, greenhouses, and fields, that will help guarantee rapid initiation of experiments. The identification of promising natural enemies will be aided by the Center’s taxonomists, its considerable experience in biological control, collections of entomopathogens such as fungi and nematodes, and biotechnological techniques.

The Institute of Plant Diseases and Plant Protection (IPP) of the University of Hannover, Germany

The Institute has a strong background in biological control in both temperate and tropical environments. Within the framework of its English-language MSc horticultural program at the IPP, the University of Hannover will train two Colombian students in modern techniques of biological plant protection. They will actively participate in the IPDM component, developing suitable bioassay techniques for screening entomopathogens for white grub control.

The Department for Biotechnology and Biological Control (DBT) of the University of Kiel, and the E-Nema Company in Kiel, Germany

The DBT specializes in research on entomopathogenic nematodes of the genera Steinernema and Heterorhabditis for use in the biological control of insect pests. The DBT will participate in our project by identifying entomopathogenic nematodes and training CIAT research assistants in the mass production of these organisms.

The Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA)

The BBA, in Darmstadt, Germany, has a long history of expertise in the use of entomopathogenic fungi against soil pests. The BBA will identify pathogens and give intellectual and logistic support for the development of biological control technologies.

The Colombian Corporation for Agricultural Research (CORPOICA) and the following universities: Universidad de Valle (Univalle) in Cali, the Universidad de Caldas in Manizales, and the Universidad Nacional in Bogotá.

CORPOICA coordinates national NARS that are already working on biological control agents of white grubs. Additionally, CORPOICA will facilitate the involvement of extension specialists in our project. CORPOICA’s station in Medellín and the University of Antioquia have laboratory and field expertise in the application of bacteria, entomopathogenic fungi (EPF), and nematodes (EPN) against white grubs . The Corporation will also contribute with strains of EPNs and EPFs, collected at various sites in Colombia, and will assist in identifying and testing pathogens. Corpoica's Rionegro Reasearch Center in Rionegro (Antioquia) will execute the project in potato fields in northeastern Antioquia, in coordination with CIAT. The Universidad de Caldas has expertise in the taxonomy of Scarabaeidae and will identify soil pests and their natural enemies in several agroecological zones of the department of Risaralda; the Universidad Nacional, with expertise in the study of entomopathogenic organisms, particularly nematodes, will do the same in the department of Cundinamarca. Students of Univalle are participating in the evaluation of the pathogenicity of several native entomopathogenic nematodes against the white grub Phyllophaga menetriesi.

Contact: Andreas Gaigl