Green peach aphid (Myzus persicae) can be a serious pest problem for oilseed rape crop, in the south-east of Romania

Abstract

In this paper, it has reported a high attack of the green peach aphid (Myzus persicae), in late autumn of the year 2018, at oilseed rape crop, in the south-east of Romania. This pest has a wide range of host plants, attacking more than 240 species from 64 different botanical families. The evolution of green peach aphids at oilseed rape crop, during autumn, was assessed in this paper. A field experiment was carried out at NARDI Fundulea, both in 2017 and 2018. It has assessed untreated and treated seeds variants with systemic insecticides. Also, it has recorded percentage of parasitized aphids by Aphidius spp. and Praon spp. In the weather conditions from autumn of the year 2017, green peach aphids density at oilseed rape crops was insignificant with a maximum of 2.25 aphids/leaf at untreated plants and 0.38 aphids/leaf at plants emerged from treated seeds. However, in 2018 it has registered a high density of this pest at oilseed rape crop with a maximum of 243.25 aphids/leaf at untreated plants and 29.38 aphids/leaf at plants emerged from treated seeds. In weather conditions of the year 2018, in the experimental field from NARDI Fundulea, highest population amount of green peach aphids at untreated oilseed rape plants it has recorded in late autumn, on 12 November. Possible explication for this is because of higher temperatures and drought recorded both in October and the first half of November. At the same time, in autumn of 2018, parasitized aphids percent was 5.15 % at untreated variant and between 4.74 and 5.00 % at treated variants. This situation occurred in autumn of 2018, in the south-east of Romania must be a warming for the farmers for the following years. Increasing the temperature and drought can have an effect of increasing the attack of aphids at oilseed rape crops, in autumn.