Justification and Problem Statement
The Western tarnished plant bug, Lygus hesperus is a major pest of cotton in the San Joaquin Valley and a closely related species, L. lineolaris, is quickly becoming the primary pest of cotton in the Southeast US. Research in the past few years aimed at developing a control strategy that targets the pest species and sustains natural enemy populations, which would otherwise be killed by chemical pesticides that are currently used. Beauveria bassiana is a fungal pathogen that infects a wide range of insect hosts including Lygus bugs. Commercial formulations of this fungus are…
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