The armored scales Hemiberlesia musae Takagi and Yamamoto, 1974 and Duplachionaspis divergens (Green, 1899) (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) were collected on the base of the stem and on leaves of sugarcane plants, Saccharum spp. (Poales: Poaceae), cultivated in plastic pots in greenhouses in the municipalities of Jaboticabal and Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, respectively. This is the first report of D. divergens in Brazil and H. musae on Saccharum host plants.

BACKGROUND The improvement of surface coverage and plant protection products deposition can be obtained by electrifying droplets, which are strongly attracted by plants, including the abaxial part of the leaves. Moreover, air assistance improves droplet penetration into the crop canopy, especially in the lower third of the plants. These technologies can help control soybean (Glycine max) whitefly, which preferentially lodges on the abaxial surface of the leaves. Thus, this study aimed to assess the effect of air‐assisted spraying and electrically charged droplets to control whitefly in soybean, besides assessing surface coverage, plant protection product deposition, droplet size, and crop yield. RESULTS Droplet electrification and air assistance did not change droplet size and uniformity classified as Fine. Surface coverage was not enhanced using air assistance and electrically charged droplets, where maximum coverage in the middle third of the plants was 4.55%. The results were not significant for spray plant protection products deposition. The number of nymphs per leaflet in the 2019/20 growing season was reduced with the used technologies, reducing from 10.9 to 3.0 nymphs per leaflet in the application with air‐assisted and charged droplets, but not enough to differ from the untreated. On the other hand, the reduction was significant from the first assessment in the 2020/21 growing season. CONCLUSION Air‐assisted spraying plus electrically charged droplets, under the conditions of this experiment which corresponds to the application carried out in production areas, were not effective to affect whitefly control and soybean yield in comparison to the conventional application method. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Nitrogen fertilizers are one of the highest expenses in agricultural systems and usually a limitation to the productions of many agricultural crops worldwide. The intensive use of this element in modern agriculture represents a potential environmental threat, one of the many tools for the sustainable use of this resource without losing productivity is the use of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, especially nitrogen-fixing bacteria. However, in considering the competitiveness of the market, studies are still needed to determine the most efficient way to use this resource and if the nitrogen mineral fertilization is indeed substitutable. As a result, this study aims to deepen the scientific knowledge of the plant-microbe interactions by addressing their main characteristics and functionalities for plant growth and development and efficiency in the use of nitrogen. For this we reviewed relevant information from scientific works that address these issues.

Saccharicoccus sacchari (Cockerell, 1895) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) is globally disseminated on sugarcane plants. In Brazil, this species has been occurred in the same region as the occurrence of the fungal pathogen causing red rot, Colletotrichum falcatum Went, 1893 (Glomerellales). The objective of this study was to evaluate the hypothesis that this pseudococcid could act as a facilitator of the penetration of the phytopathogen C. falcatum. Species of this mealybug were reared at laboratory to infest sugarcane plants during the experiment. A total of 320 sugarcane plants were utilized for this study, 160 of CTC4 and 160 of RB86 7515 cultivars (cv.), each group subdivided into four treatments: (1) infested with mealybugs; (2) infected with fungal conidia; (3) infested with mealybugs and infected with fungal conidia; and (4) control.Biometrics of the plants, disease symptoms, Total Reducing Sugars (TRS) and Reducing Sugar (RS) were evaluated. To both cv., there was no difference in the height and diameter of the plants in all treatments; and only in "mealybug + fungus", significant difference on the lengths of the disease lesions inside the plants was found to each cv. as well as the levels of TRS and RS. The presence of the pseudococcid increased the incidence of the disease in both cv., although RB86 7515 was more susceptible to red rot than CTC4.

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