Asian Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition

The intensive application of pesticides has multiple negative effects on soil health and plants quality and production. Many crops such as Cucumber, is an economically important crop which have many health benefits, is suffering from harmful infestation with variant phytophagous insect pests such as Aphis gossypii, Bemisia tabaci and Liriomyza trifolii. Thus, the objective of this study is to investigate the impact of two types of insecticide application on plant and soil properties. Therefore, the population densities of aphid, whitefly and leafminer infesting cucumber and two associated predators (lady beetle and green lacewing) were investigated under seed and foliar treatments of imidacloprid and thiamethoxam. Results indicated that the three studied insect pests reduced in each of foliar or seed treatments compared to control in almost sampling dates in the two seasons. Seed treatment delayed the appearance of the previous insect pests by 2 to 3 weeks by insignificant difference with foliar treatment in the two seasons. The use of imidacloprid and thiamethoxam as seed treatment with very low application rate will provide the farmers with an additional tool of IPM for control aphid, whitefly and leafminer on cucumber plants with less environmental effect and increased applicator and consumer safety compared to foliar application. In addition, seed treatment was less dangerous on predators than foliar one. As well as, it is concluded that the first insecticidal spray can replace by seed treatment to control the infestation in early plant stage. Moreover, the foliar application caused negative impact on soil properties. Consequently, the seed application was friendlier environment and more economics than foliar application on cucumber pest infection and soil health.