Cady Eakins | 2025 I.S Symposium

Name: Cady Eakins
Title: Intercropping as a Form of Intergrated Pest Management: How Crop Diversification Alters Arthropod Community Compositions and Effects Mustard Green Damage
Major:Environmental Studies
Minors: Earth Science
Advisors: Carlo Moreno and Matt Mariola

This study aimed to assess the impacts of intercropping on insect pests and natural enemies in mustard greens (Brassica juncea). ). It was hypothesized that increasing crop diversity by row-intercropping would lead to a decrease in pest diversity and abundance due to increases in natural enemy diversity and abundances and ultimately reduce crop damage to mustard greens. Mustard greens were grown in monoculture and intercropped with marigolds (Tagetes patula), or cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) to assess intercropping as an integrated pest management (IPM) strategy in the Campus Learning Garden at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. Each treatment was replicated twice. Target pests included leafhoppers (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae), flea beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), and aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae), while target natural enemies were syrphid flies (Diptera: Syrphidae), braconid and ichneumonid wasps (Hymenoptera: Braconidae, Ichneumonidae), ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae), and arachnids (Arachnida). My findings suggest that intercropping mustard greens with marigolds or cilantro can suppress certain pest species, such as leafhoppers, though this effect does not appear to be the result of increased natural enemy diversity or abundance. Finally, intercropping mustard greens with marigolds or cilantro had no significant effect on reducing mustard green crop damage. More research needs to be done to assess how the design of urban gardens affects arthropod community compositions to get a better understanding of the results from my study.

Posted in Symposium 2025 on May 1, 2025.