Semiochemicals for sustainable thrips management

Thrips are small insects that cause direct damage and some transmit viruses to agricultural and horticultural crops and forest trees. Current thrips management requires a significant input of agrichemicals, which creates risks for workers, consumers and the environment. As well, a number of thrips species are of significant quarantine concern. New thrips management strategies are urgently needed to supplement existing tools such as chemical and biological pesticides. For example, semiochemical-based technologies could serve as additional management tools, since they have proved their efficiency at controlling many large insect pests. However, these technologies have been under-exploited for small insects such as thrips. To address this issue, an international network was initiated in 2012, the focus of this Europe Australasian Thrips Semiochemical Network (EATS) is to develop semiochemical-based tools for management of thrips. The progress made in this field is reported in the following paper.