The Role of Planting Patterns to Control Thrips from Red Chili Pepper Plants

Abstract

Chili plants are commodities that are vulnerable to various types of pests, one of the main pests is thrips. This study aims to determine the role of cropping patterns to control thrips from red chili plants, which was carried out in the Maros Regency, South Sulawesi. Planting patterns applied were: 1) chili using plastic mulch without the combination of other plants and the use of pesticides, 2) chili using plastic mulch combined with corn plants, 3) chili without plastic mulch combined with watermelon plants, 4) chili without plastic mulch combined with watermelon and corn plants, 5) chili without plastic mulch combined with corn plants and 6) chili using plastic mulch and pesticides (according to farmers' treatment). The results showed that the highest population of thrips was found in the chili cropping pattern without plastic mulch combined with watermelon and corn plants with as many as 15 T. parvispinus and 32 T. palmi thrips. Meanwhile, the chili planting pattern using plastic mulch without the combination of other plants and with the use of pesticides had the lowest average amount of thrips population weighing at 5.1 T. parvispinus and 9.5 T. palmi. T. parvispinuspopulation was lower at the beginning of the observation (during the vegetative period) and tends to increase during the generative period of chili plants. T. palmi shows the opposite trend, its population tends to be high at the beginning of plant growth (vegetative phase) and decreases its population when the plant enters the generative period. Based on the data and facts found during the study, it is concluded that: 1). The chili cropping pattern without plastic mulch combined with watermelon and corn plants showed the highest average number of thrips population compared to the other cropping patterns. 2). The abundance of populations of the two thrips species showed different fluctuations, where T. parvispinus populations tended to increase in line with plant development and T. palmi decreased according to plant development. 3). In general, the application of intercropping cropping patterns has not yet appeared to play a role in reducing the abundance of thrips population but there is an opportunity to apply cropping patterns as a method to control thrips by selecting plants that are more suitable to be combined with chili plants.

Determining the technical and economic feasibility of combining pest control techniques in open field and netting house chili cultivation systems

“…There was no insecticide applied to control thrips and armyworms in both open field and netting house since plant damages were below its control threshold (Figure 1). Yellow sticky traps have been found to reduce thrips dispersal, while plastic mulch can prevent pests from pupating in the soil (Haerul et al 2020;Hossain et al 2020). There was no insecticide applied to control armyworms since the related crop damage was below its control threshold (less than 12.5%) in the open field, and no armyworms were found inside the netting house (Figure 2).…”

Drip irrigation system: useful technique to improve chili production

“…Thus, there was no insecticide application was applied in the field. The implementation of plastic mulch and yellow sticky traps on both systems have known to be effective in reducing thrips populations by preventing thrips from pupaing in the soil and trapping pest in sticky traps [24][25][26]. The crop damage due to the armyworm S. litura attack is presented in Figure 3.…”

Arboreal arthropod assemblages in chili pepper with different mulches and pest managements in freshwater swamps of South Sumatra, Indonesia

“…Plastic mulch can reduce the population of herbivorous insects in chilies and other vegetables (Kolota and Adamczewska-Sowinska 2013), for example, Thrips parvispinus (Karny) (Nasruddin et al 2020) and Thrips palmi (Karny) population (Razzak et al 2019;Nasruddin et al 2020). The reflective silver mulch can reduce the population of nymphs and adults of whitefly (Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius)) in chilies (Agus et al 2019). Cultivating environmentally friendly chilies without using fertilizers and synthetic insecticides on chilies can increase the presence of natural enemies of the chili leaf curl vector insect (Rondonuwu et al 2014).…”