Seasonal Alate Aphid Collections in Yellow Pan Traps in Northeastern Mississippi: Possible Relationship to Maize Dwarf Mosaic Disease12

Abstract

Yellow pan traps filled with water were used to collect alate aphids around the periphery of a field planted to corn during the summer and grain during the winter. Selected aphid species were tested for their ability to transmit the Mississippi isolate of maize dwarf mosaic virus (MDMV). A total of 4899 aphids was collected from October 1968 through September 1969; aphids collected represented 47 species in 22 genera. The 9 predominant species and their abundance as percentage of the total collection were: Aphis maidiradicis Forbes 27.6%, Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harris) 18.3%, Myzus persicae (Sulzer) 12.7%, Aphis spiraecola Patch 11.1%, Dactynotus ambrosiae (Thomas) 10.6%, Aphis gossypii Glover 5.4%, Aphis fabae Scopoli 1.6%, Hyadaphis pseudobrassicae (Davis) 1.4%, and Rhopalosiphum maidis (Fitch) 1.3%. The total aphid collections during the 12-month sample period showed 2 distinct peaks of activity April–May and October–November. Thirty-five aphid species in 15 genera were collected during the corn-growing season. The predominant species were: A. pisum 51.5%, A. spiraecola 15.0%, A. maidiradicus 10.1%, and M. persicae 9.3%. Seven of 10 aphid species transmitted the Mississippi isolate of MDMV. Transmissions with groups of 5 aphids per test plant ranged from 1.9% of the plants infected for R. maidis to 26.4% for Schizaphis graminum (Rondani).