Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Kearneysville, West Virginia » Appalachian Fruit Research Laboratory » Innovative Fruit Production, Improvement, and Protection » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #228080
Title: Monitoring and management of the apple maggot fly and the plum curculio: honoring the legacy of R. J. Prokopy

Author
item Leskey, Tracy
item CHOUINARD, G - IRDA, QUEBEC, CANADA
item VINCENT, CHARLES - AGRIC AGRIFOOD CANADA

Submitted to: Biorational Tree Fruit Pest Management
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/1/2009
Publication Date: 6/1/2009
Citation: Leskey, T.C., Chouinard, G., Vincent, C. 2009. Monitoring and management of the apple maggot fly and the plum curculio: honoring the legacy of R. J. Prokopy. In: Aluja, M., Leskey, T.C., Vincent, C., editors. Biorational Tree Fruit Pest Management. Wallingford, England. p. 110-144.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Host finding mechanisms generally include recognition of visual cues associated with and chemoreception of volatiles emitted by particular host plants. Identification of these attractive visual and olfactory stimuli has led to advances in sustainable pest management practices as they can provide the basis for development of monitoring and management strategies using the principle of behavioral manipulation. Behavioral manipulation relies on a comprehensive understanding of specific behavioral responses from the targeted insect, and subsequent manipulation of these responses to protect a valued resource. These strategies have become the cornerstone of some integrated pest management systems. Some of the best examples of this type of strategy in tree fruit production systems were developed by the late Ron Prokopy for two of the key pests found in New England apple orchards. Prokopy worked extensively on the host finding behavior of the apple maggot fly, Rhagoletis pomonella (Walsh), for most of his career, and on plum curculio, Conotrachelus nenuphar (Herbst), in the last years of his career, with the aim to develop monitoring and/or management strategies for these two species. The key components of these strategies generally included: (1) synthetic versions of host plant volatiles or other semiochemicals deployed as attractants; (2) attractive visual cues integrated into a trapping design; (3) a capture mechanism that is compatible with a particular trap design and; (4) an effective deployment strategy (optimal location for and timing of trap installation). We discuss early published results of basic behavioral studies by Ron Prokopy and continue to follow and highlight the advances he and others have made toward development of effective behavioral based monitoring and management strategies for the apple maggot fly and the plum curculio. We suggest research questions that still remain, but must be addressed in order to meet this ultimate goal and conclude with a discussion of how fundamental studies of insect behavior can be used as the basis for novel crop protection applications.