Establishment of a Faba Bean Banker Plant System with Predator for the Control of Thrips on Tea Plants under Laboratory Conditions.

The stick tea thrip (Priesner) (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) is a destructive pest in tea plantations in south and southwest China. To control this pest, a non-crop banker plant system was developed using a polyphagous predator (Poppius) (Heteroptera: Anthocoridae) with the black bean aphid (Scopoli) (Hemiptera: Aphididae) as an alternative prey and the faba bean as the banker plant to support the predator in targeting the pest. The fitness of on tea plants and faba bean was evaluated to determine its host specificity. Moreover, the control efficacy of the banker plant system on on tea plants was tested in the laboratory and compared with that of direct release of . The experiments showed that faba bean was an excellent non-crop host for because, while the aphid population increased quickly on faba bean, it could only survive for up to 9 days on tea plants. Compared with direct release of , lower densities of pest were observed when introducing the banker plant system. Our results indicate that this banker plant system has the potential to be implemented in the field to improve the control of the pest thrips.