Abstract
Experiments were conducted in commercial apple orchards to determine if improved efficiencies in pheromone delivery may be realized by using aerosol pheromone dispensers for codling moth (CM), Cydia pomonella L., mating disruption. Specifically, we tested how reducing: pheromone concentration, period of dispenser operation, and frequency of pheromone emission from aerosol dispensers affected orientational disruption of male CM to pheromone-baited monitoring traps. Isomate® CM MIST formulated with 50 % less codlemone (3.5 mg/ emission) provided orientation disruption equal to the standard commercial formulation (7 mg / emission). Decreased periods of dispenser operation (3 and 6 h) and frequency of pheromone emission (30 and 60 min) provided a level of orientational disruption similar to the current standard protocol of releasing pheromone over a 12 h period on a 15 min cycle, respectively. These three modifications provide a means of substantially reducing the amount of pheromone necessary for CM disruption. The savings accompanying pheromone conservation could lead to increased adoption of CM mating disruption and, moreover, provide an opportunity for achieving higher levels of disruption by increasing dispenser densities.
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Acknowledgments
This project was funded in part by Pacific Biocontrol Corporation. Special thanks to Mike Haas and Jessica Alpers for assisting in field experiments, Don Armock and Mathew Badgerow for use of their apple orchards.
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The authors Peter S. McGhee, James R. Miller, and Larry J. Gut declare that they have no conflict of interest. The Author Donald Thomson works in research and sales at Pacific Biological Control, but was a contributing author in the design of experiments including runtime, amount of active ingredient, and numbers of dispensing units/ac.
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McGhee, P.S., Miller, J.R., Thomson, D.R. et al. Optimizing Aerosol Dispensers for Mating Disruption of Codling Moth, Cydia pomonella L . J Chem Ecol 42, 612–616 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-016-0724-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-016-0724-9