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The Plant Protection Department and PEI Hold a Whitefly Identification Training

Saturday, February 13 2021, the Insect Museum "Soemartono Sosromarsono", the Department of Plant Protection and the Indonesian Entomology Association (PEI) held a training on the Identification of Whitefly Pest Insects (Bemisia tabaci). This training is carried out online using the Zoom Meeting, attended by academics, practitioners and the general public.

This training is filled by expert lecturers in the field of insect taxonomy of the Plant Protection Department who is also an active member of PEI, namely Dr. Purnama Hidayat, Dr. Nina Maryana and Dr. Dewi Sartiami. The material presented was introduction to taxonomy, biology and behavior of Whitefly, procedures for taking and handling Whitefly, how to make microscope preparations, introduction to Whitefly identification keys with dichotomous keys and multi-access / interactive keys.

Whitefly itself is one of the insects or plant pests. In addition to being a pest, Whitefly is also a vector of plant viruses that cause dwarfing plants, yellow and curly leaves, which disturbs the physiology of the plant and decreases its productivity. “Whitefly are small (0.8-1.0 millimeters), white in color and often covered with fine threads made of wax. Because of its relatively small size and its role as a pest in the crop. Whitefly is known to have a host (hostplant) of 65 families of 179 plant species, both horticultural crops (58%), weeds (16%), plantations (11%), forestry (8%) and food crops (6%), " said. Dr. Purnama Hidayat.