Related to psylla issue on pitaschio much of the issue is related to insecticide resistance. You will need to change to a biologically based IPM approach. Plastic cards covered with stickem adhesive can be used to determine the psylla concentration to apply your controls only we needed. You need to stop the insecticide reliance and use instead means based on insecticide surfactant such as oils and soaps. In addition you will need to work to increase lady bugs, lace wings soldier bugs and other beneficials the use of composite wild flower between the orchard can stimulate these biocontrols. Other controls are use of neem oil and plant extracts which can be rotated when threshold psylla populations are noted. You should also work to identify any mineral nutrients which are resulting to making plants attractive to signaling the plant vulnerability. Zinc deficiency would be very important as zinc chlorosis signals the insects and improves their nutrition. You should monitor the nutrition of orchards and rectify the deficiencies of excesses.

There are several microbials which can have good effect against psylla insects. Fungi and bacteria might be very effective. Beside the yellow card sticky traps another approach is beating off a sample for analysis. When looking at issues like these the pruning to out canopy and allow treatment coverage might be critical. Psylla can also be vectors of systemic disease vectored by these insects which also need to be taken into account.

Are any natural enemies of psylla insects known such as parasitoid , ants and other?

There are many alternatives more safe than chemical insecticides. You can use microbial control agents like entomopathogenic fungi. Also, predators or parasites such as Orius or Anthocorides can be used against this pest. Moreover, application of ovicidal insecticides at the appropriate time can be used as early control of this pest Nasir Saberi Riseh

Parasitoid wasp, lacewings, lady bird beetles, soldier bugs, syrphid flies, and others.

Fungi and bacteria also biocontrols. Funig Beauvaria bassiana, Paeciliomyces fumorsoeous, Metarhizium anisopliae, Verticilum lecanii, Isar fumosorosea, and also bacteria.

Ants probably would be predators also.

Paul Reed Hepperly

Dear Dr Hepperly

We can not use microbials control cause these ways can not have good effect against psylla.

psylla is suckers of phloem and microbial can not enter to digestive system.

Jean-Pierre Jost

yes they are but population of psylla are very high and the enemies could not control of them.

have you attempted vegetable oil insecticidal soap and neem oil?These can be effective against this type of insect and do not damage most beneficials. In your orchards the presence of composite flowers tend to increase the natural beneficial insects. Also think you need to make sure that micronutrient deficiencies are not present as they will exacerbate the damage. In some areas they rear beneficials which might be effective if you try them out you can see. It would be good to take tissue samples by selecting at least 20 leaves and analyzing for the complete nutrients with the idea of looking for nutrient issue. Another material that has been shown to have some efficacious is kaolin clay.

One opportunity for study would be take either 1) vegetable oil 2) insecticidal soap 3) neem oil and 4) kaolin clay or nontreated set up as an experiment.

Make your applications at 7 day interval and look at the population changes from your different treatments. Graph out the population changes as evidence for control efficacy.

It would be very good to get an idea of population fluctuations with seasons and set up the idea of determining an action threshold.

You will want to observe for opportunities of biocontrol insects in your field.

Heba Youssif El Sayed Ibrahim

thank you for answer.

We can not use microbials control cause these ways can not have good effect against psylla.

psylla is suckers of phloem and microbial can not enter to digestive system.

Paul Reed Hepperly

yes, we used soap and decrease population for just 2 weeks and psylla increase again and again.

If you can discern the economic threshold the trapping and counting can indicate the timing of application. The soap, oil, neem and clay and use rows of flowers to promote beneficial insects this will about as good as it can be done. Another approach is to use activators of systemic acquired resistance mechanisms. Interplanting of non host or deterents might also be useful.

The entomopathogenic fungi such as Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae have many successes because their characteristics of good epizootic and over dependence on a suitable environmental factors, which make them useful after establishment. Also, they do not have to be ingested by the insect host but can invade the host upon contact with the insect cuticle. Nasir Saberi Riseh

Heba Ibrahim makes some good points. The use of Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisolpiea, Paecilomyces and others have been shown potentially effective and as she points out the ability to adapt to the particular environment is critical. Perhaps a screening in laboratory and the field would give the ideal of which of these might be most useful under your conditions. In an integrated approach a range of tactics might be needed with none alone being adequate efficacy and control and the combination substitutes a many little hammer approach rather than a big hammer approach. Monitoring is a big part of any control approach. Monitor and adapt.

If you are dealing with aphids many of them are sensitive to (E)-beta--farnesene an alarm pheromone (aphids avoid this substance) and at the same time farnesene attracts Coccinella bipunctata an enemy of aphids

One of the way we can increase resistance in plant for sucking insects are to introduce new variety of genetically modified (GM) plants.

Heba Youssif El Sayed Ibrahim

Thank you so much for your guidance.

your approach is good but we should know which is strain is better than others. we will should run of plan about this.

GMO technology is often touted as a quick effective solution to fundamental pest issues. This is hardly ever the case however. The most successful of these technology glyphosate resistance is now plagued by super weed development and the issues with glyphosate are becoming more shown as the chemical is not as benigh as the technology promoters suggested. In the case of pitaschio the obtacles are much greater because the crop is a very long cycle for the breeding improvement and the crop is consumed directly. If we take golden rice which has known of obstacles that in terms of pest issues the quick development and option has been anything but being touted since the 1980s and showing no quick development for implementation of an acceptable product.

Dear Nasir,

The inefficiency of different insecticides against pistachio psylla is not completely relied on insect's resistance to insecticides. As well as, you should notice to plant's physiology. 

I think you can use different plant's defense inducer such as phytohormones (e.g. salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, abscisic acid, etc.). Additionally, you can reinforce the plant's immune system by micro- and macro minerals (e.g. zinc, copper, iron, manganese, magnesium, calcium). 

Keep in the mind, pest control is not dependence in one way (chemical method). I think for an unusual pest, pistachio psylla, the grower should be using different methods together. IPM is a key way for your problem. 

Kind regards, Homayoon. 

You can study the manuscript:

Silicon and Mechanisms of Plant Resistance to Insect Pests doi: 10.3390/plants7020033

Hi...

To control pistachio psylla, you can use select pesticides such as Palizin, sirinol and Tandexir, Because they're not harmful effects on natural enemies ... You can also use Kaolin powder to control this pest.

I deal with a slightly different problem: Diaphorina citri in citrus. At least it is a tree crop and a psyllid pest.

Plant breeding (tissue culture) for resistance coupled with EPG (=electrical penetration graph, or electropenetrography) as a tool to assess resistance to the psyllid. EPG is already used for pear psylla, and the potato (tomato) psyllid, Asian citrus psyllid, African citrus psyllid, and possibly others.

EPG could also be used in development of other insecticides, SAR, RNAi, or other possible management techniques.

A big difference is that with EPG you are directly monitoring feeding behavior rather than relying on mortality as the end point. This is especially critical when the insect is a vector of a disease, but will also work when the insect is a direct pest because the result is more nuanced. If you know that it takes 4 hours longer to reach the phloem in one cultivar than another, at least that gives a starting point even if the psyllids successfully ingest phloem and survive. The alternative (and still useful) approach is to do life table analyses.

Dear Nasir Saberi Riseh

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