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[Lon Rombough <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

From: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
Date: November 4, 2004 4:37:18 AM PST
Subject: New Lures To Trap Pesky Caterpillars
Reply-To: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>

STORY LEAD:
New Lures To Doom Crop-Damaging Caterpillars
___________________________________________

ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Jan Suszkiw, (301) 504-1630, jsuszkiw@ars.usda.gov
November 4, 2004
___________________________________________

Enticing new lures developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) 
scientists could make backyard gardens, fruit orchards and crop fields 
places of no return for pesky caterpillars.

The lures, derived from molasses and floral odors, tantalize both male 
and female moths--the caterpillars' adult stage--with the promise of 
nectar. Instead, the insects fly into the opening of a lure-dispensing 
trap, never to escape.

Peter Landolt, research leader at the ARS Vegetable Insects Research 
Unit in Wapato, Wash., and Connie Smithhisler, a chemist there, 
developed the lures as an alternative to chemically controlling the 
pests--loopers, cutworms, fruitworms, armyworms and corn earworms.

According to Landolt, most currently used lures act on the male moth's 
sense of smell. These lures work by dispensing a synthetic version of 
the female moth's chemical sex attractant, or pheromone, which the 
males find irresistible. Saturating the air with synthetic pheromone 
confuses the male moths, disrupting their ability to find mates. Such 
lures are also used to monitor the pests' movements and whereabouts. 
But most lures offer no way of keeping tabs on the female moths, 
according to Landolt.

He and Smithhisler overcame the problem by identifying, testing and 
synthesizing blends of volatile compounds from molasses that attract 
both sexes of moths. In another "unisex" lure formulation, the 
researchers combined various floral scents, including those from Oregon 
grape, honeysuckle and Gaura flowers. The molasses-derived lure is now 
commercially available for garden use as the product SMARTrap. The 
floral based lures are in their second year of field tests. In one 
trial, by Washington State University graduate student Leonardo Camelo, 
who works at the ARS lab, use of the floral lures in a "killing 
station" reduced the number of alfalfa loopers by 75 percent.

Read more about the research in this month's issue of Agricultural 
Research magazine, online at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/nov04/moth1104.htm

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

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