Riad Zidan⁽¹⁾ Mohammad Ahmad⁽²⁾ and Alisar Shaabow^*(1)

(1). Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture Tishreen University, Latakia, Syria.

(2). Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, Latakia, Syria.

(*Corresponding author: Eng. Alisar Shaabow. E-Mail: alisar.nadeem@yahoo.com).

Received: 19/11/2018                                Accepted: 19/12/2018

Abstract

The study was carried out in a greenhouse at Latakia center for rearing natural enemies during 2017 and 2018, in order to study the effect of  the biological control of the two spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae Koch (Acari: Tetranychidae) by using the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis Athias-Henroit (Acari: Phytoseiidae) on growth and production of five cultivars of climbing bean i.e. Kentucky wonder white, Blue lake, Fatima, Purple Queen, and Zilioni Gigant. The results showed that releasing the predatory mite increased the leal area to 10294 cm² compared with that in the prey treatment 5983 cm², and the net assimilation rate increased from 0.15 to 0.36 mg/cm²/day, while the production increased from  0.27 kg/m² to 1.25 kg/m², for both prey and predator treatments respectively. The results also showed that Kentucky wonder white cultivar of the predator treatment exceeded other cultivars in leaf area 9499 cm² and production 1.18 kg/m².

Key words: Climbing bean, Growth traits, Biological control, Tetranychus urticae Koch، Phytoseiulus persimilis Athias-Henroit.

Full paper in Arabic: PDF