Soybean management practices and their impact on the crop-associated pest insect population at the Paragominas grain pole.
Population fluctuation; Effect of treatments; productivity
The soybean crop presents expressive numbers that reflect the great economic and social importance that the activity has for the country's economy. However, production faces obstacles to its development due to phytosanitary problems that have caused significant damage, causing reduction of production and grain quality, due to the complex of insects - pests related to culture. The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of different management practices on population fluctuation of the main soybean pests and their natural enemies, as well as to quantify the impact of the use of these strategies on crop productivity. The experiments were conducted in areas belonging to the Support Center. Larger populations of Bemisia tabaci (adults and nymphs) were observed in the T4 treatment, throughout the crop cycle, with reduction in the reproductive stage, which may be associated with lower food availability or the presence of ascomyte fungi, observed in the reproductive stage. For natural enemies, greater diversity was observed in the T2 treatment, where there were applications only when the pest population reached the level of damage. There was no significant difference between treatments T1, T2 and T3, according to the Tukey test at 5% (α=0.05), for crop yield.