Optimizing crops for biological control as a sustainable strategy of crop protection

After the increase in food prices, growing threats have been raised for the challenge of feeding 9 billion people living on Earth by 2050. Thus, there is a pressing need to drastically increase crop production, but insect infestation is a major constraint preventing this. These insects are controlled using chemicals, but future use is under scrutiny due to emerging problems of insecticide resistance. Biological control is a sustainable alternative but is still insufficiently effective. It has been proposed that enhancing the foraging of natural enemies may help to improve biological control. In my talk, I will focus on the ongoing research efforts of optimizing crops for biocontrol.status: publishe