Does combining a wheat and pea mixture with methyl salicylate reduces aphid populations in both crops?

Aphids are important pests of wheat and pea. Among the alternative methods to control them with less reliance on insecticides, crop associations already proved to be efficient. However, if increasing the chemical and structural complexity of vegetation can disrupt their host plants location, the searching efficiency of predators and parasitoids can also be reduced. Therefore, these beneficials may not always be more abundant in such systems. Combining crop associations with attractive semiochemicals for natural enemies can be interesting to solve this problem. In this research, we compared the effect of a wheat and pea pure stand, wheat and pea mixture, and wheat and pea mixture combined with methyl salicylate (MeSA) formulated in alginate gel beads, on the abundance and diversity of aphids and their natural enemies. These were weekly observed on plants during 2013 and 2014 growing seasons. Over these two years, significantly higher numbers of pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum (H.)) were observed in the pure stand of pea compared with both mixtures (with and without MeSA). No significant differences were observed between treatments for wheat aphids (Sitobion avenae (F.), Metopolophium dirhodum (W.) and Rhopalosiphum padi (L.)), which were significantly less abundant than pea aphids. Aphid natural enemies were mainly observed on pea plants. Hoverfly larvae abundance was not significantly different between treatments during both years. The same phenomenon occurred with hoverfly pupae in 2013, while these were significantly more abundant in both mixtures compared with the pure stand in 2014. However, their number did not differ significantly between the mixture with and without MeSA. Few ladybirds and lacewings were observed. No significant differences were observed between treatments for parasitoid mummies in 2013. Their abundance was significantly higher in the pure stand of pea compared with both mixtures in 2014. Results from this study show that mixing wheat and pea is an efficient method to maintain aphid populations at a very low level on pea. The use of MeSA did not show significant effects on natural enemies. However, mixing these crops may be enough to reduce aphid populations under an acceptable threshold.