180 Views

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Member Symposium

Clickbait: Click Beetles and Wireworms (Coleoptera: Elateridae) as Inspiration On-Demand Presentations

A formulated entomopathogenic fungi for the wireworm control in Europe

On-Demand

Presenting Author(s)

MK

Michael Kastenbutt

Head of Laboratory
BIOCARE GmbH
Dassel, Germany

Co-Author(s)

EB

Elisa Beitzen-Heineke

BIOCARE
Dassel, Germany
WB

Wilhelm Beitzen-Heineke

BIOCARE
Dassel, Germany
AP

Anant Patel

University of Applied Sciences
Bielefeld, Germany
SV

Stefan Vidal

Georg-August-University
Göttingen, Niedersachsen, Germany

Wireworms, the larvae of click beetles, are one of the most important insect pests of agricultural and horticultural crops worldwide. In recent decades, wireworm damage has continuously increased repeatedly reaching severe economic levels in particular in potatoes. Efficient and sustainable control measures are desperately needed, specifically in organic but as well as in conventional potato production.The innovative capsule system ATTRACAP®, based on a biological attract-and-kill strategy against these soil dwelling insect pests takes advantage of the fact that larvae are attracted to CO₂. The capsules produce and emit CO₂, and an isolate of Metarhizium brunneum grows out of the capsules, with which the wireworms come into contact. Thus, a maximum probability of infection is achieved with a minimized application rate. Field applications on farmer fields and specific experiments have predominantly yielded efficacies on average above 50%.