Optimizing Aerosol Dispensers for Mating Disruption of Codling Moth, Cydia pomonella L.

Experiments were conducted in commercial apple orchards to determine if improved efficiencies in pheromone delivery may be realized by using aerosol pheromone dispensers for codling moth (CM), Cydia pomonella L., mating disruption. Specifically, we tested how reducing: pheromone concentration, period of dispenser operation, and frequency of pheromone emission from aerosol dispensers affected orientational disruption of male CM to pheromone-baited monitoring traps. Isomate® CM MIST formulated with 50 % less codlemone (3.5 mg/ emission) provided orientation disruption equal to the standard commercial formulation (7 mg / emission). Decreased periods of dispenser operation (3 and 6 h) and frequency of pheromone emission (30 and 60 min) provided a level of orientational disruption similar to the current standard protocol of releasing pheromone over a 12 h period on a 15 min cycle, respectively. These three modifications provide a means of substantially reducing the amount of pheromone necessary for CM disruption. The savings accompanying pheromone conservation could lead to increased adoption of CM mating disruption and, moreover, provide an opportunity for achieving higher levels of disruption by increasing dispenser densities.

Aerosol emitters disrupt codling moth, Cydia pomonella, competitively.

BACKGROUND: Isomate(®) CM MIST aerosol emitters (Pacific BioControl Corp, Vancouver, WA) containing 36 g of codlemone, (E,E)-8,10-dodecadien-1-ol, were deployed at various densities in a commercial apple orchard to generate dosage-response profiles in order to elucidate the behavioral mechanism of disruption. RESULTS: Moth captures decreased asymptotically as Isomate(®) CM MIST densities increased. Data fitting to Miller-Gut and Miller-de Lame plots yielded straight lines, with positive and negative slopes respectively. Catch of male moths decreased from 28 trap(-1) in the control to 0.9 trap(-1) at the highest emitter density. Disruption of >90% was realized at emitter densities greater than 5 units ha(-1) . CONCLUSION: The resulting set of profiles explicitly matched the predictions for competitive rather than non-competitive disruption. Thus, these devices probably disrupt by inducing false-plume following rather than by camouflaging traps and females. The use of 5 MIST units ha(-1) would be necessary to achieve the same level of codling moth control provided by a standard pheromone treatment with passive reservoir dispensers. The need for only a few aerosol emitters, 2.5-5 units ha(-1) , mitigates the cost of labor required to hand-apply hundreds of passive reservoir dispensers; however, a potential weakness in using this technology is that the low deployment density may leave areas of little or no pheromone coverage, where mate finding may occur. This technology is likely to benefit substantially from treatment of large contiguous blocks of crop.