The Future of Trap Cropping Technology: Measuring Progress and Assessing Challenges Posed by Emerging Pests in Diverse Environments

Dear Colleagues, 

Recent reports suggest that insect populations in many parts of the world have declined by over 25% during the past three decades. These declines include major beneficial groups such as pollinators and natural enemies of pests. Of note is the fact that these numbers have no data from Africa or Asia, which have been the source of major invasive crop pests in recent years (for example, the spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula), the brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys), and spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) inter alia). Despite the reported decline, and seen in the context of the impact of climate change on pest abundance and distribution across zones and seasons, insect pests remain a force to be reckoned with in agriculture and public health. Use of highly toxic pesticides is likely to persist in many areas, especially as pests continue to ravage our resources and remain a public health risk. Research efforts on alternative and more sustainable bio-intensive pest suppression approaches have gained traction around the world. One of these is the use of plant decoys, more commonly known as trap cropping, an ecological resource rearrangement tactic that capitalizes on insect host preferences to divert pests from the main crop to a more attractive and often less valuable, host (“sink”) or trap crop (TC). This is not a new approach, but one that has been deployed with limited success in some scenarios and even less in others. Some TC models (that may include number of TCs, density, special orientation, time and manner of introduction, sacrificial or beneficial, etc.) may be better suited for use in small farm landscapes, while others work better in larger commercial cultivation. There are several challenges in TC deployment which cannot be minimized; but at the same time, the successes to date, even if minimal, should not be downplayed. In the context of our current understanding of TC technology, what can be done to enhance its efficiency, development and deployment without dwindling farm profits and environmental rewards? Given the changing future of agricultural landscapes confounded with an ever-increasing number of invasive pests, will trap cropping continue to be relevant and play an important ecological as well as a socio-economic role? And this has to be assessed in an IPM framework. What does the state of TC science predict in this regard? Has there been real and measurable progress (in cost analysis and environmental safety)? These and other questions will be addressed in this Special Issue.

Dr. Louis E.N. Jackai
Dr. Jaime C. Piñero
Guest Editors

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• Trap crop technology
• TC models
• IPM framework
• sustainable and measurable progress
• farm profits
• environmental safety