Pest monitoring and forecasting
We monitor the pest insects of field
vegetable crops in our plots at Wellesbourne
using sticky traps, water traps, pheromone
traps and by sampling the soil.
The suction trap at Wellesbourne is part of the
network of traps run by the Rothamsted Insect
Survey. It runs 365 days of the year and is
particularly effective for monitoring aphid
numbers. The information is published online:
http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/insect-survey/
The information collected is used in
research projects and, together with output
from pest forecasts developed at Warwick,
is published on a web site hosted by
Syngenta http://www.syngentacrop.co.uk/pestupdate/
25
180
160
20
140
120
15
100
80
10
60
40
5
20
0
0
6-Apr
27-Apr
18-May
8-Jun
29-Jun
Overwintered carrots
Warwick Crop Centre
www.warwick.ac.uk/go/wcc
20-Jul
New carrots
10-Aug
31-Aug
21-Sep
Wellesbourne forecast
Percentage eggs laid per week (forecast)
Much of this work has been funded by
Defra and the HDC.
200
Flies per trap per week at Wellesbourne
Trap records have also been used recently
to develop forecasts for black bean aphid
and willow-carrot aphid.