Resistance factors in pepper suppress larval development of thrips
In this study, we showed in leaf bioassays that resistance
factors present in the intermediate and resistant pepper
accessions have no effect on adult mortality, but increase
pre-adult mortality of thrips. It cannot be excluded that
there might be differences in thrips behaviour on a whole
plant compared to a leaf disc. Chitturi et al. (2006) have
shown that female F. occidentalis prefer to feed on whole
plant compared with excised leaves in a choice test. However,
a previous study showed high correlation between
thrips injury observed in leaf bioassays and in whole plant
tests (Maharijaya et al., 2011), which indicates that it is
possible to use leaf bioassays to rate the level of resistance
of pepper against thrips.
Strong and significant effects occur during larval development,
especially during the transition from L1 to L2