Thrips fellowship

Thrips fellowship

Research on controlling thrips using plant chemicals has won Dr Melanie Davidson an AGMARDT postdoctoral fellowship.

Dr Davidson, of Crop & Food Research, Lincoln, will investigate the behavioural responses of thrips to plant chemicals and visual cues to help understand how thrips locate their host plants. From this it is hoped to develop monitoring and mass trapping devices for the pests.

Dr Davidson's previous research has included the impact of insecticides on non-target species, integrated pest management programmes for heliothis in pine seedling forests and potato tuber moth in potato crops.

She also helped develop and evaluate genetically engineered potatoes with resistance to potato tuber moth for her PhD studies.

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