Abstract: Host plant volatiles and insect pheromones are the most important semiochemicals for insects, and their synergism can modulate insect behaviors. The attraction to sex- and aggregation pheromones of insects can be greatly enhanced by specific plant volatiles through the increased electroantennogram, pheromone incepting neuron action potential, and pulse-frequency. When the specific plant volatiles are bound with octopamine receptors, the threshold of sex pheromone incepting neuron to sex pheromones is decreased, while the sensibility of sex pheromone incepting neuron is increased, which may be the main mechanism for the synergism of plant volatiles to insect pheromones.

Key words: silicon transporter gene, environmental condition, silicon absorption and allocation, bloom, cucumber, graft