Proefschrift
Green defense against thrips- Exploring natural products for early management of western flower thrips
As a contribution to the changing legislation and evolving societal attitudes concerning environmental issues, this project aims to enhance and manipulate the plants’ own natural defense mechanisms against western flower thrips (WFT).
- Auteur
- Mouden, S.
- Datum
- 13 februari 2020
- Links
- Thesis in Leiden Repository
As a contribution to the changing legislation and evolving societal attitudes concerning environmental issues, this project aims to enhance and manipulate the plants’ own natural defense mechanisms against western flower thrips (WFT). Accordingly, an approach based on treatments of seeds (Solanum lycopersicum) and cuttings (Chrysanthemum morifolium) was undertaken to protect plants from their early critical young stage onwards. Known putative defense secondary metabolites were exogenously applied whereas, external application of plant hormones was explored as a means to trigger innate defense responses. Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NADES), as environmentally benign solvents, significantly improved the solubilizing properties of poorly-soluble insecticidal metabolites but did not enhance resistance against WFT. On the contrary, seed treatments with the ubiquitous plant hormone jasmonic acid (JA) appeared to induce cultivar dependent defenses as it only reduced silver damage in tomato cultivar Carousel. Sulfuric acid scarification, prior to JA seed incubation, significantly augmented the embryonic receptivity of a non-responsive cultivar thus, highlighting the importance of seed coat permeability. Moreover, we demonstrate that water dipping of indole-3-butyric acid (IBA)-coated chrysanthemum cuttings repeatedly reduced herbivory, both by thrips as well as by leaf miner.