Resistance mixtures reduce insect herbivory in strawberry (Fragaria vesca) plantings: leaf damage and yield data

The transition towards more sustainable plant protection with reduced pesticide use is difficult, because there is no ‘silver bullet’ available among non-chemical tools. Integrating several plant protection approaches may thus be needed for efficient pest management. Recently, increasing the genetic diversity of plantations via cultivar mixing has been proposed as a possible method to reduce pest damage. However, previous studies have not addressed either the relative efficiency of exploiting cultivar mixing and intrinsic plant herbivore resistance or the potential utility of combining these approaches to increase cropping security. Here, using a full factorial experiment with 60 woodland strawberry plots, we tested for the relative and combined effect of cultivar mixing and intrinsic plant resistance on herbivore damage and yield. The experiment comprised two levels of diversity (“high” with ten varieties and “low” with two varieties), and three levels of resistance (“resistant” compri...