Nysius cymoides (Hemiptera: Lygaeidae), an emerging new pest of sugarcane in Iran and its possible management

Sugarcane is cultivated broadly throughout the globe including more than 120 thousand hectares in Khuzestan province, the main area of sugarcane production in Iran. This crop is vulnerable to many biotic and abiotic stressors. Among these biotic stressors, pests have crucial role in damaging sugarcane and hence in reducing total raw sugar. The false chinch bug, Nysius cymoides is an economically important pest of different agricultural, horticultural and ornamental crops. It is the main pest of rapeseed canola, soybean, alfalfa, cucumber, sunflower and acacia tree which may reduce the quality and quantity of plant. During our routine sampling in sugarcane fields, we encountered large number of populationof this pest and consequent damage to sugarcane in. This pest colonized the sugarcane plant, suck plant sap and cause necrosis and in severe damage the whole plant can die. In this paper, we reported N. cymoides as a new pest of sugarcane in Iran.