Orchard insect pests

The quick-breaking emulsion concept developed by DeOng et al, (6) in 1927 materially improved the insecticidal efficiency of spray oils against insect pests of citrus. After annoimcement of these results, a large number of proprietary spray oils was placed on the market in California. During the next several years considerable variation in pest control and in damage to citrus orchards occurred with oil sprays. 

Uses herbicides/insecticides pre- or post-emergence control of broadleaf weeds in cereals, maize, lucerne, clover, trefoil, grass leys, potatoes, peas, onions, garlics, peas, leeks, soya beans, orchards, groundnuts, strawberries, vineyards and other crops for control of strawberry runners and raspberry suckers and overwintering forms of insect pests on fruit trees also used as a desiccant for leguminous seed crops destruction of potato haulms as a pre-harvest hop defoliant, etc. 

Starting in 1908 in the orchards of the Pacific northwest, the cases of resistance before World War II and the era of the synthetic organics involved the HCN used against scale insects on citrus, the arsenicals used against orchard caterpillars and cattle ticks, and tartar emetic applied against the tiny insect pests called thrips as now, many instances originated in California (Table I). The resistance mechanisms were investigated in two of... 

In small orchards, you can take the time to protect individual fruit on apple and pear trees by enclosing them in paper bags. The bags prevent insect pests from finding and damaging the fruit. 

Davidson, Ralph H., and William E Lyon. Insect Pests of Farm, Garden, and Orchard. 8th ed. New York John Wiley Sons, 1987. 

Smith (1907) recommended the use of calcium arsenate instead of lead arsenate. Of the calcium salts of arsenic acid, mainly the acid salt of structure 3, and to a lesser extent the neutral salt of structure 4 and the basic salt of structure 5, have been applied in protection against insect pests in orchards, cotton and other plants. 

Carbaryl is a very potent contact and respiratory poison and its spectrum of action is different from that of most of the carbamic acid derivatives. It is very efficient against chewing insects, and proved particularly successful for the control of insect pests in orchards. It is 70 times more toxic than DDT towards bees, but is inefficient against red spider mite (Georghiou and Metcalf, 1962 Haynes et al., 1957 Johnson and Stansbury, 1965). 

IPM programs have been most effective for cotton, sorghum, peanuts, and fruit orchards, but less effective for corn and soybeans. Some of the biological controls include release of sterilized insect pests, use of insect pheromones to disrupt mating, release of natural predator pests, and use of natural insecticides. 

The development of malathion in 1950 was an important milestone in the emergence of selective insecticides. Malathion is from one-half to one-twentieth as toxic to insects as parathion but is only about one two-hundredths as toxic to mammals. Its worldwide usage in quantities of thousands of metric tons in the home, garden, field, orchard, woodland, on animals, and in pubHc health programs has demonstrated substantial safety coupled with pest control effectiveness. The biochemical basis for the selectivity of malathion is its rapid detoxication in the mammalian Hver, but not in the insect, through the attack of carboxyesterase enzymes on the aUphatic ester moieties of the molecule. 

Pheromones are used primarily for monitoring pest populations, but their use as pest suppression tools has also been proposed. These alternative uses include mass trapping, mating disruption, and lure and kill. Although these approaches have been tried with varying levels of success in field and orchard crop systems, they have had limited application for the management of stored-product insects. 

There is little doubt that the advent of DDT and other highly effective materials has brought about change in the nature of our insect problems. For example, the apple red bug which was formerly controlled by oil sprays has almost disappeared as a commercial pest in orchards following the adoption of a DDT spray program. On the other hand, the European red mite has become more severe as a result of the general use of DDT. It seems safe to say that the advent of DDT has not decreased the over-all use of petroleum oils as insecticides. 

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