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Title: APPLIED CHEMICAL ECOLOGY OF THE ORIENTAL FRUIT MOTH: OPTIMIZING THE USE OF HAND-APPLIED DISPENSERS FOR MATING DISRUPTION

Author
item KOVANCI, O - ULUDAG UNIV,BURSA,TURKEY
item GENCER, N - BURSA, TURKEY
item LARSEN, T - BEND, OR
item Knight, Alan

Submitted to: International Society of Chemical Ecology Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/1/2007
Publication Date: 7/22/2007
Citation: Kovanci, O.B., Gencer, N.S., Larsen, T.E., Knight, A.L. 2007. Applied chemical ecology of the oriental fruit moth: optimizing the use of hand-applied dispensers for mating disruption. Proceedings of the 23rd International Society of Chemical Ecology Meeting, July 22-27, 2007, Tena, Germany.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The use of synthetic sex pheromones for mating disruption has been widely adopted as an environmentally safe alternative to broad-spectrum insecticides to control many lepidopteran pest species [1]. Among the controlled release devices for insect pheromones, hand-applied dispensers are the most commonly used for mating disruption but the high cost of hanging each pheromone dispenser near the top of tree canopy remains a serious limitation to areawide pest management programs [2]. The ways of lowering the labor time and application cost was investigated using perimeter applications of dispensers with or without clustering dispensers in the center of the plot. Small-plot studies (1 ha) in 2006 evaluated the efficacy of the following treatments for control of the Oriental fruit moth (OFM) in two peach orchards near Bursa, northwestern Turkey: 1) mating disruption with hand-applied sex pheromone dispensers (membrane emitters) placed around the perimeter of the treatment plot; 2) mating disruption with membrane emitters placed around the perimeter with an internal square grid of 25x25 m in the center of the plot containing 4 dispensers/tree for a total of 25 trees; 3) mating disruption with membrane dispensers placed uniformly throughout the block and, 4) a control block which received only insecticides. For all mating disruption treatments, hand-applied dispensers were applied at a rate of 250 dispensers/ha except for peripheral + grid combination at 200 dispensers/ha. First-generation OFM populations were managed with two Thiacloprid applications and mating disruption treatments were applied from the beginning of June. All mating disruption treatments except the perimeter applications alone provided control as good as insecticides. Evenly spaced dispensers were significantly more effective in reducing male captures in pheromone traps than those placed around the perimeter alone but not than those with an internal grid. There was a trend of reduced damage both in uniformly distributed and peripherally arranged hand-applied dispensers with an internal grid compared with the other treatments. The use of a perimeter application + internal grid design may allow the development of a lower cost, and reduced rate application program for the oriental fruit moth, which needs to be ascertained in future studies. Literature: [1] Control of moth pests by mating disruption: successes and constraints. Cardé, R.T. and A.K. Minks. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 1995, 40, 559. [2] Sprayable microencapsulated sex pheromone formulation for mating disruption of oriental fruit moth (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) in Australian peach and pear orchards. Il’ichev A.L., Stelinski L.L., Williams D.G., and Gut L.J. J. Econ. Entomol. 2006, 99, 2048.