Creative Commons

This dissertation was written as part of the MSc in Sustainable Agriculture and Business at the International Hellenic University. The green peach aphid is a polyphagous pest which causes severe damage in a variety of crops and for this reason a number of intensive chemical control programs have been applied the last decades. The chemical control of green peach aphid is regarded challenging due to the different resistance mechanisms that have developed in aphid populations by the use of synthetic insecticides. The continuous use of the same chemical insecticides has directed to the appearance of the insecticide resistance in the majority of MoA groups. In the present dissertation all the chemical groups with the basic representatives that have been used for the control of M. persicae the previous years are described in detail. In this study the susceptibility of ten aphid clones of M. persicae from one region in northern Greece was examined with leaf dip bioassay method against flonicamid. The results showed that the resistance factors were relatively low, which was in accordance with other corresponding bioassay studies. The majority of studies have indicated no resistance to the insecticide flonicamid without detecting any resistance mechanism although more research is needed. Moreover, data of the insecticide resistance from applications in International and also in Greek aphid populations is presented in the dissertation. Due to the above reasons the resistance levels of various chemical groups have been studied extensively with purpose to determine the effectiveness of the insecticides’ use and also to detect the frequency of resistance mechanisms in M. persicae populations.