Moth control using pheromone-baited traps

Our efforts on western spruce budworm have thus far been limited to survey applications. Specifically, we have been attempting to correlate moth captures (in pheromone-baited traps) with larval densities and/or defoliation on a series of test plots. We would like to expand this effort in the future, and also explore use of the budworm attractant for control purposes. 

In another work, the pheromone treatment reduced catches of the male pink bollworm moths in pheromone-baited traps, boll infestations, and female mating. The effect was compared to both the use of insecticide control and an untreated check plot.22 These flakes, alone or in combination, were sprayed and dispensed by air either in flake form or in a liquid formulation. The effectiveness of the gossyplure-treated flakes is seen in Figure 3. 

Many adult moths ate instrumental in pollinating flowers in the course of their feedir. Female moths produce and release into the environment a hormone vfiich attracts males for matir. (Such hormones, which exert their action outside the body of the organism ate called pheromones. ) Many pheromones have been chemically analyzed, and a few of them ate now prodnced in the laboratory. Such products ate increasii ly used as bait which is placed in traps to attract and kill haimhil insects, and thus to control their populations. A number of moth species are known to undertake seasonal migrations over loi distances. 

The apple fruit moth, Argyresthia conjugella, is an invasive pest that bores into immature apples and eats them from within. One of its sex pheromones is (Z)-11-hexadecenyl acetate, which is used commercially to attract and trap the adult insects. Insect attractants are important chemicals for use in "organic" farming, because sticky insect traps baited with pheromones are allowed for insect control underthe "organic" farming rules. 

---