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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Kearneysville, West Virginia » Appalachian Fruit Research Laboratory » Innovative Fruit Production, Improvement, and Protection » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #199036

Title: IMPACT OF TEMPERATURE ON PLUM CURCULIO RESPONSES TO ODOR-BAITED TRAPS

Author
item Leskey, Tracy
item Zhang, Aijun

Submitted to: Journal of Economic Entomology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/21/2006
Publication Date: 5/20/2007
Citation: Leskey, T.C., Zhang, A. Impact of temperature on plum curculio responses to odor-baited traps. Journal of Economic Entomology. Vol 100: 343-349.

Interpretive Summary: The plum curculio is a serious pest of apple and peach in the eastern United States and Canada. We have developed baited traps for monitoring plum curculio activity in fruit orchards. The effectiveness of these baited traps at capturiing plum curculio appears to be related to ambient temperature. Baited traps apparently are less effective when temperatures are low (between approximately 11 degrees C to 13 degrees C) because the amount of odor released by baits is likely too low to be detected by adults, but more effective when temperatures reach approximately 16 degrees C or higher when a higher amount of odor is released by synthetic baits. In order for traps to be reliable early in the spring when plum curculios are most active and ambient temperatues often fluctuate a great deal, we must develop lures that can release large enough amounts of odor even at low temperatures to be detected by foraging plum curculios.

Technical Abstract: In 2005, captures of overwintered adult plum curculio, Conotrachelus nemuphar (Herbst) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), in standard black masonite pyramid traps baited with known attractants did not result in significant captures compared with unbaited traps as they had in 2003 and 2004. These baits included the synthetic aggregation pheromone, grandisoic acid (GA) alone, a 6-component systhetic host plant volatile combination identified from foliar and woody tissues of a Stanley plum tree (6-Tree) in combination with GA (6-Tree+GA), and the synthetic fruit volatile benzaldehyde (BEN) in combination with GA (BEN+GA). In 2005, the average daily temperature was below 13 degrees C, much cooler that in 2003-2004, We hypothesized that plum curculio could not discriminate between baited and unbaited traps because of reduced release rates of odor-bait stimuli due to their temperature-driven release system. Based on data collected from 2003-2005, we found that plum curculio captures in traps baited with GA alone, 6-Tree+GA, and BEN+GA were significantly related to temperature, and we created a predictive model to determine the level of activity, i.e. trap captures in baited traps compared with unbainted traps we would expect to observe at a particular temperature for these same odor stimuli. Our models predict that at temperatures between approximately 11 degrees C to 13 degrees C we would expect to see no difference between captures in baited and unbaited traps. For captures in odor-baited traps to reach twice those in unbaited traps, our model predicts that temperatures must reach 19.2 degrees C for GA alone, 18.5 degrees C for 6-Tree+GA, and 15.8 degrees C for BEN+GA.