Seasonal Phenology of the Major Insect Pests of Quinoa ( Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) and Their Natural Enemies in a Traditional Zone and Two New Production Zones of Peru

Luis Cruces, Eduardo de la Peña and Patrick De Clercq
Additional contact information
Luis Cruces: Department of Entomology, Faculty of Agronomy, Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, Lima 12-056, Peru
Eduardo de la Peña: Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ghent University, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium
Patrick De Clercq: Department of Plants & Crops, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium

Agriculture, 2020, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-17

Abstract: Over the last decade, the sown area of quinoa ( Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) has been increasingly expanding in Peru, and new production fields have emerged, stretching from the Andes to coastal areas. The fields at low altitudes have the potential to produce higher yields than those in the highlands. This study investigated the occurrence of insect pests and the natural enemies of quinoa in a traditional production zone, San Lorenzo (in the Andes), and in two new zones at lower altitudes, La Molina (on the coast) and Majes (in the “Maritime Yunga” ecoregion), by plant sampling and pitfall trapping. Our data indicated that the pest pressure in quinoa was higher at lower elevations than in the highlands. The major insect pest infesting quinoa at high densities in San Lorenzo was Eurysacca melanocampta ; in La Molina, the major pests were E. melanocampta , Macrosiphum euphorbiae and Liriomyza huidobrensis ; and in Majes, Frankliniella occidentalis was the most abundant pest. The natural enemy complex played an important role in controlling M. euphorbiae and L. huidobrensis by preventing pest resurgence. The findings of this study may assist quinoa producers (from the Andes and from regions at lower altitudes) in establishing better farming practices in the framework of integrated pest management.

Keywords: quinoa; Eurysacca melanocampta; Macrosiphum euphorbiae; Liriomyza huidobrensis; Frankliniella occidentalis; natural enemies; IPM; Peru (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/10/12/644/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/10/12/644/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:10:y:2020:i:12:p:644-:d:464276

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().