Sentences with word «rootworm»
"Rootworm" refers to a type of insect that feeds on the roots of plants, especially corn. It can cause damage to the plants and affect crop yield. Full definition
In addition to producing two Bt toxins to kill any western corn rootworm larvae that try to eat it, the plant produces a piece of RNA that shuts down a specific gene inside the larvae, killing them.
newscientist.com
Turlings's team is now looking into creating super-resistant maize by inserting the gene for caryophyllene into plants that are already engineered to produce the Bt toxin against rootworms.
«The first evidence of rootworm resistance to Bt corn was discovered in Iowa in 2009,» said Dr. Bruce Tabashnik, the study's lead author and head of the entomology department at the University of Arizona.
In 2003, to reduce costs and cut back on soil insecticides, U.S. farmers began planting Bt corn that kills rootworms.
Resistant rootworms could wreak further havoc on farms that have already endured the hottest, driest summer the U.S. Midwest has suffered in more than seven decades.
A new report by researchers from the Department of Entomology at Iowa State University shows that western corn rootworms on two Illinois farms have developed resistance to Cry3Bb1, the insecticide produced by YieldGard.
It attracts nematodes that kill the larvae of the western corn rootworm, responsible for an estimated $ 1 billion in lost revenue in the US every year.
Emerging resistance of the western corn rootworm to Bt corn exemplifies the urgent need for well - defined resistance terms.
Technology to defeat the corn rootworm, scientists worry, will work only briefly against an inventive foe
Sightings of the corn rootworm, a pest that feeds on corn roots, and the Japanese beetle, an insect that can destroy corn tassels, have actually decreased, he added.
The bacterium targets agricultural pests, such as corn rootworm and Colorado potato beetle, but leaves pollinators like bees unharmed.
By contrast, control fields were planted to a greater diversity of crops and employed an array of management practices to control corn rootworm (Table 1).
There are few pests in the United States as destructive as the corn rootworm.