A project to study onion and garlic pests in the Transcaucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East was first launched by an Altai scientist thanks to a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (RSF). The study will help develop measures to control the number of pests in order to reduce the damage to farmers, its author, entomologist, professor at the Institute of Biology and Biotechnology of Altai State University Roman Yakovlev told TASS.
“The project will be implemented over the next two years. As part of the study, expeditions to Armenia, Georgia, and Morocco are planned. The group of carpenter butterflies in question is just widely represented in Transcaucasia. There are pests of onions - they are called "dispess" or "onion whetstones." The project is aimed at studying them, because butterflies are quite serious pests of onions and garlic, which are one of the dominant crops in that region,” Yakovlev said.
According to him, we are talking about a large group of butterflies, which includes about 75 species. Now agricultural entomologists cannot effectively deal with them, since the species of this genus have been little studied, and accordingly, measures have not been developed to regulate the number of pests. Thanks to the Yakovlev project, comprehensive information about this group of insects will be obtained. In particular, one of the results of the project will be the creation of a bank of DNA markers that will help in identifying pests. Subsequently, using these data, measures to combat these insects can be developed.