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nafex - [NAFEX] Fwd: Pheromone Sprayer Disrupts Moths

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  • From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
  • To: NAFEX <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Fwd: Pheromone Sprayer Disrupts Moths
  • Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:22:41 -0700

Begin forwarded message:

From: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
Date: September 27, 2007 5:53:49 AM PDT
Subject: Pheromone Sprayer Disrupts Moths
Reply-To:
ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>

STORY LEAD:
New Pheromone Sprayer Leads Amorous Moths Astray
___________________________________________

ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Jan Suszkiw, (301) 504-1630, jan.suszkiw@ars.usda.gov
September 27, 2007
--View this report online, plus photos and related stories, at www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr
___________________________________________

For decades, apple and pear growers have "adorned" their orchards with hundreds of plastic dispensers that emit a chemical sex attractant, or pheromone, to disrupt codling moth mating. Now, thanks to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) studies in Wapato, Wash., growers could soon be spraying the pheromone instead.

Growers customarily hang the pheromone dispensers from tree limbs by hand--often 200 to 400 of them per acre. It's a laborious, costly affair, notes Alan Knight, an entomologist with ARS' Yakima Agricultural Research Laboratory in Wapato.

Although spraying pheromone isn't a new idea, early attempts stumbled on technological hurdles. In 2003, Knight decided to give it a try based on a 1999 observation he had made while testing a fluorescent dye he had added to a sprayable, microencapsulated pheromone product developed by a Bend, Ore., company.

Using the dye and a black light to examine microcapsule densities on tree leaves, Knight determined the codling moth pheromone's delivery could be improved using ultra-low-volume (ULV) spraying. Besides cutting water use from 100 gallons to 1.25 gallons per acre, Knight's approach increased the microencapsulated pheromone's deposition rate by six- to 10-fold.

His trials in apple and pear orchards since 2003 show that ULV spraying four to six times a season disrupted codling moth mating as effectively as the hand-hung dispensers. Knight determined this from captured-moth counts and reductions in fruit damage. In 2005, he expanded the studies to include ULV spraying of the insecticide esfenvalerate, which curbed moth egg-laying by 95 percent.

If unchecked, hatchling moth larvae waste little time boring inside nearby fruit, ruining its marketability. Besides apples and pears, the pests also attack walnuts.

Knight is testing reduced-insecticide rates in combination with the pheromone. And to the sprayer itself, he's making adjustments that include adding an electronic "eye" to direct pulses of material into the center of a tree's canopy.

Read more about the research in the September 2007 issue of Agricultural Research magazine, online at: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/sep07/moths0907.htm

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.

___________________________________________

This is one of the news reports that ARS Information distributes to subscribers on weekdays. Send feedback and questions to the ARS News Service at NewsService@ars.usda.gov.

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__________________________________________
ARS News Service, Information Staff, Agricultural Research Service
5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD 20705-5128
NewsService@ars.usda.gov | www.ars.usda.gov/news
Phone (301) 504-1638 | fax (301) 504-1486



  • [NAFEX] Fwd: Pheromone Sprayer Disrupts Moths, Lon J. Rombough, 09/27/2007

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