Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
7.
H
OST
P
REFERENCE
Because pea aphids severely constrain food legume production in
Ethiopia, pea aphid preference and performance study on common food
legumes were tested with no-choice, dual- and multiple-choice experiments
under greenhouse conditions in northwestern Ethiopia.
The results revealed that pea aphids preferred field peas, lentils and grass
peas more than faba bean. Growth rate of pea aphids varied with crop variety
and plant growth stage. Field pea and lentils died within 30 days. Cumulative
pea aphid load was higher on field pea and grass pea than on faba bean and
lentil (Figure 4 and 5). In the no-choice experiment, the mean pea aphid
number per five plants ranged between 1.8 at 5 days after aphid infestation
(DAI) on improved faba bean and 321.5 at 20 DAI on local field pea (Tesfaye
et al., 2013). In the dual- and multiple-choice experiments, aphids required
less than 1 day to infest field pea, lentil and grass pea plants, and 4-11 days to
infest faba bean. No variety was immune to infestation, but overall, field peas
and grass peas were good hosts for culturing pea aphids. Growing susceptible
crops in pea aphid hot spot areas may have to be avoided in favor of less
preferred ones.
Faba bean
Field pea
Grass pea
Lentil
4
3.5
3
a)
b)
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
5
10
15
20
25
30
Days after infestation (DAI)
Figure 4. Cumulative pea aphid days per five plants on cool-season food legumes, a)
Local varieties, b) Improved varieties.
