One of the most devastating pests of chili pepper is the sweet potato whitefly (SPW), Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae). It sucks plant sap, emits honeydew on which sooty mold fungi grow, and transmits the pepper yellow leaf curl Indonesia virus (PepYLCIV), the most damaging viral disease of chili in Indonesia. Farmers rely mainly on insecticide to control the insect with two to three sprays in a week. To reduce the insecticide use, an integrated approach needs to be developed. Therefore, the current study evaluated the effectiveness of the integration of reflective mulch, host plant resistance, and insecticide use for managing the sweet potato whitefly on the chili pepper. In 2018, a complete randomized block design was used in three separate trials to assess the effects of mulch, cultivar, or insecticide application frequency on the numbers of whitefly eggs, nymphs, and adults. In 2019, a split-split plot design was used to evaluate the effects of the integration of mulch, cultivar, and insecticide application frequency on the numbers of whitefly eggs, nymphs, and adults. The results showed that the reflective silver mulch had significantly lower numbers of whitefly eggs, nymphs, and adults, in comparison to the rice straw mulch and bare ground treatments. Chili plants cv. Bara was more resistant than Bhaskara against B. tabaci in the field; however, in the no-choice trial, no significant difference was detected between both cultivars. Insecticide applications twice per week and once per week were equally effective in controlling the whitefly on the susceptible cultivar (Bhaskara). Overall, the integration of reflective mulch, resistant cultivar, and insecticide application every two weeks effectively suppressed B. tabaci populations on the chili pepper. This approach could substantially reduce the number of insecticide applications from twice per week (commonly practiced by chili farmers in the area) to one application only in two weeks.

Oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis, (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae) is a destructive pest to many major crops, including chili pepper (Capsicum frutescens L). The insect can cause yield loss up to 100% in the absence of any control measures. One control tactic commonly used by pepper growers to control the fruit fly is sticky trap to capture the adults. The purpose of the current study was to elucidate the effect of trap color and height on the fly capture. The results showed that yellow trap was consistently the most attractive trap amongst the other trap colors tested with an overall average of 62.6 adults per trap during the study. The second most attractive traps were white and green traps with overall averages of 45.2 and 40 adults per trap, respectively. The attractiveness levels of the red and blue traps were comparable each other with overall averages of 29.4 and 25.4 adults per trap, respectively. The least attractive trap was black trap with an overall average of 17.1 adults per trap, which was significantly lower than the other trap colors. In addition, traps set up at 25 and 50 cm above the ground captured significantly more adults (187.8 and 171.9 per trap, respectively) compared to those set up at 75 and 100 cm above the ground (60.8 and 37.1 per trap, respectively). When the combination of the color and height of the traps were analyzed, the yellow, white and green traps set up at 25 and 50 cm above the ground caught the highest numbers of adult fruit flies and they were not significantly different each other. Thus, these combinations should be recommended to the pepper growers to control the insect in their plantations.

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