Name: Dr. Robert E. Lynch, (Retired) Collaborator

Title: Research Entomologist

Research: Host-plant resistance to insects in peanut, forage grasses, and corn; relation of insects to aflatoxin contamination in peanut; and integrated pest management.

Support Staff:None

Address: Crop Protection and Management Research Unit
USDA-ARS
P.O. Box 748
Tifton, GA 31793-0748

Phone: 229-387-2347

FAX: 229-387-2321

E-Mail: RLynch@tifton.usda.gov

Education: B.S., Arkansas State University , General Science
M.S., Iowa State University , Entomology
Ph.D., Iowa State University , Entomology

CRIS Project Title: Integration of Alternative Pest Management Strategies for the Management of Insects and Aflatoxin Contamination in the Southeastern Coastal Plain

Research Goals: Develop sustainable pest management systems. Identify and develop corn, peanut, and forage grass germplasm with resistance to insects/aflatoxin, and determine the mechanisms of resistance. Evaluate transgenic corn and peanut for resistance to insects.

Major Accomplishments:

Identified resistance to insects in peanut, bermudagrass, and bahiagrass.

Documented that lesser cornstalk borer damage to peanut pods was intimately associated with enhanced A. flavus and aflatoxin contamination, and that only external pod scarification, rather than pod penetration, is sufficient to enhance aflatoxin contamination in peanut seed.

Assisted in the development of a model based on rainfall and temperature that predicts outbreaks of the lesser cornstalk borer.

Identified the pheromone of the lesser cornstalk borer that is now commercially available to monitor populations of this insect.

Integrated concepts of fertilization, harvest frequency,, measurements of forage quality, and fall armyworm population dynamics to develop a management system that is used to avoid fall armyworm damage in bermudagrass.

Authored the chapter Biological and Biotechnical Advances for Insect Management in Peanut in Advances in Peanut Science, which is used worldwide as the authority on management of insect pests of peanut.

List of Publications
Research Photos