Tweaking Plant Cholesterol Precursors Could Protect Cotton

By Adam Russell

Cotton growers have long faced an uphill battle against insects like aphids, caterpillars and lygus bugs. These pests reduce yields and diminish producer profitability.

But a team of Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists say a new line of research could offer a new tool for integrated pest management, IPM, in cotton by exploiting a biological weakness shared by many plant-feeding insects.

Their strategy focuses on an unexpected target: cholesterol.

“Everybody knows cholesterol,” said Gregory Sword, Ph.D., Regents Professor and Charles R. Parencia Chair in Cotton Entomology in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Entomology. “But insects need it and obtain it in a very different way than we do. Our research identified that difference as a weakness we can exploit to protect plants.”