Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed Plant Armor, a textile "plant armor" that makes insects move through a maze if they try to reach a plant, according to Phys.org.
This news will be of interest to producers of healthy seed potatoes who grow them under cover in the field or in greenhouses.
Based on the results of the experiments, the researchers said that Plant Armor could be a more effective, chemical-free alternative for insect protection.
"We have found that this new technology can be used to protect against insects," said the study's first author Grayson Cave, a postdoctoral fellow at North Carolina State. “We have shown that we can use a mechanical barrier that will protect against thrips and possibly other insects, allowing the plant to produce a good crop.”
Previously, plant covering materials were designed to exclude insects just because of their size, like window screens, the researchers say. However, this strategy can be problematic when trying to keep out small insects such as tobacco thrips, which are about the size of a pencil tip.
"To exclude insects that are really small using traditional textile cover designs, the size of the holes must be so small that it also prevents the ingress of water, air and moisture," said Mike Roe, senior researcher at the study, William Neil Reynolds, emeritus professor of entomology. state of North Carolina. “We had to come up with a different way.”
To this end, the researchers developed a three-layer three-dimensional coating associated with the use of transparent fibers in the outer and inner layers. The fibers, which can be made from recycled plastic, still let in sunlight but keep insects out of the plants. A special inner layer is clamped perpendicular to the two outer layers, creating a labyrinthine structure within Plant Armor.
“In this case, the insect has to figure out how to get through the maze to get to the plant on the other side,” Rowe said. - Tortuosity makes it difficult to pass. The insect has a certain amount of time to find food, otherwise it will die.”
In the first of three experiments, the researchers found that the insects take significantly longer to get to the plant. They placed a cabbage leaf and 10 tobacco thrips in a petri dish, separating them with Plant Armor and other covering material. It took five thrips about three hours to get through Plant Armor, while the rest of the insects got through a single-ply standard crop cover in just 12 minutes.
In the same track experiment, this design was almost 90% effective in preventing Plant Armor from crossing in 12 hours.
The last experiment was a three-month field trial of Plant Armor outdoors, using the material as a covering for a greenhouse. The researchers found that plants coated with Plant Armor were larger on average; the mass of cabbage under Plant Armor was almost three times higher than the control.
The researchers believe that Plant Armor could be a good alternative to standard covering materials for high-value crops like grapes. In future research, they also want to find out if the coating can be used to protect crops under extreme conditions and climate change.
"Part of what we're doing is looking for new covering materials," said study co-author Andre West, associate professor of textile, apparel and technology management at NC State and director of the Zeis Textiles Extension. “We think this option can help farmers in extreme conditions.”