Impact of Trap Design and Density on Effectiveness of a Commercial Pheromone Lure for Monitoring Navel Orangeworm (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae)

Abstract

The navel orangeworm is an important pest of almonds, pistachios, and walnuts. A commercial pheromone lure for this pest became publicly available in 2013. We compared effectiveness of this synthetic lure (NOW Biolure) between common commercial trap designs, and with unmated females in wing traps. Orange wing traps and delta traps captured similar numbers of males when each was baited with females, although there was a significantly greater density of captured males on the smaller glue area of the delta traps. In contrast, lure-baited wing traps captured about half the males captured in female-baited wing traps in single-night tests. In these single-night tests, wing traps baited with NOW Biolure captured significantly more males than delta traps baited with NOW Biolure, and bucket traps and delta traps baited with NOW Biolure captured similar numbers of males. When the sampling interval was extended to a week, the performance of lure-baited and female-baited wing traps was more similar. Delta and bucket traps baited with NOW Biolure generally performed more poorly than wing traps baited with NOW Biolure in these weekly monitoring tests. However, the bucket traps occasionally outperformed the other trap types during periods of peak abundance. Navel orangeworm traps at a density of one per 4 ha detected differences in abundance between adjacent walnut varieties, whereas such differences were not detected with one trap per 20 ha. The implications of these findings for monitoring for navel orangeworm in these different host crops are discussed.

Diel Periodicity in Males of the Navel Orangeworm (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) as Revealed by Automated Camera Traps

“…Other studies have used different methods to achieve similar measurements, including infrared beam detectors for noctuid moths ( Hendricks 1985 ) or a modified funnel trap that dropped moths onto a disk-shaped sticky liner mounted on a clock movement for a study of the pecan casebearer, Acrobasis nuxvorella (Neunzig) ( Stevenson and Harris 2009 ). Here, the camera traps used in this study had the advantage of unambiguously identifying the target species when it was first captured, and was likely the best design for this type of study since, for instance, navel orangeworm is not efficiently captured with pheromone in funnel traps ( Burks and Higbee 2015 ). Alternatively, in comparison to the other purpose-made traps, these camera traps have the disadvantage of high expense (variable subscription cost, approximately $25 per acre per year) and requiring the use of a proprietary server to offload the data.…”

“…Traps were placed at 60 m intervals. On 15 June two of the traps (A1 and A3) had the housing unit changed to better resemble wing traps which previous research had shown more effective for capturing navel orangeworm with pheromone lures ( Burks and Higbee 2015 ). Two more traps (A2 and A4) were converted to the new housing unit on 2 July, and the fifth trap was placed in the field 7 July after a delayed start due to mechanical/electrical problems.…”

Effect of Storage of Pheromone Lures forAmyelois transitella: Field Performance and Compound Ratios

“…Charles S. Burks 1 * and Cristofer Wilk 2 The navel orangeworm, Amyelois transitella (Walker) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), is an important pest of California tree nut crops (almond, pistachio, and walnut) worth > US $6 billion per year in unprocessed form (Burks and Higbee 2015). The sex pheromone of this species is important for control by mating disruption (Higbee and Burks 2008), and potentially important as a monitoring tool (Burks and Higbee 2015).…”

“…Charles S. Burks 1 * and Cristofer Wilk 2 The navel orangeworm, Amyelois transitella (Walker) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), is an important pest of California tree nut crops (almond, pistachio, and walnut) worth > US $6 billion per year in unprocessed form (Burks and Higbee 2015). The sex pheromone of this species is important for control by mating disruption (Higbee and Burks 2008), and potentially important as a monitoring tool (Burks and Higbee 2015). The fact that a sex pheromone lure was not available for this pest until long after such lures had been developed for most other important moth pests of tree crops was probably due, in part, to the unusual complexity of the sex pheromone of this species (Leal et al 2005).…”

“…The necessity to present compounds with very different volatility complicated initial efforts to produce a practical lure (Higbee et al 2014). These difficulties were overcome, however, and a lure was commercially introduced in 2013 (NOW Biolure, Suterra LLC, Bend, Oregon, USA) (Higbee et al 2014;Burks and Higbee 2015). A second manufacturer introduced 2 additional pheromone lures in 2015.…”