Now that I am all settled in it’s time to get down to business and switch off ”holiday mode” and remind myself of the fact that I am here to conduct my research for my masters thesis. The masters I am studying is MScCCAFS in NUI Galway and during my time here I will work closely with the Vietnam University of Agriculture (VNUA). The project I am working on is called the VIBE project and I will be mainly involved in is called ”sub project 2”. I will be studying red spider mites on the Cassava crop in Văn Yên District in the Yên Bái province of Vietnam.
The cassava here is mainly grown to be use as an animal feed and is not consumed by the local people. The red spider mites lay eggs on the leaves and when the larvae hatch they feed on the leaves. This can cause the leaves to fall off and can reduce the crop yield. There is however another species of mite, referred to as a ”predatory mite” which feasts solely on the red spider mites. One objective of my thesis is to observe how many spider mites and predator mites are present on cassava leaves and to also look at the predation capacity of the predator mites on the red spider mites. There is potential to use the predator mites as a biological control agent which could greatly help the farmers here. I am looking forward to getting started in the field this week.