Cultural practices for managing Bemisia tabaci and associated viral diseases

Whiteflies (Bemisia spp.) and the viruses they vector cause extensive losses to many horticultural and agronomic crops throughout the tropics and subtropics. These losses have spurred a worldwide search for cost-effective management strategies. Cultural practices can play a significant role in integrated pest management (IPM) systems targeting whiteflies, because of their preventative nature. Yet, cultural practices have received disproportionately little attention from researchers, possibly due to the difficulty of testing by conventional methods. Practices such as crop-free periods, altering planting dates, crop rotation, and weed and crop residue disposal, perform well only if used on a regional scale and therefore are difficult to test or demonstrate experimentally. Growers may also be reluctant to adopt cultural practices such as living barriers, high planting densities, floating row covers, mulches, and trap crops., that require significant changes in conventional cropping practices. Nonetheless, we have seen adoption in recent years of some cultural practices to manage whiteflies, such as crop planning that includes host-free periods, and various forms of screened exclusion. This review focuses on research efforts, field utilization, and the potential of cultural practices to manage the whiteflies and associated viral diseases. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.