Pheromone mating disruption offers selective management options for key pests

Abstract

The direct management of insect pests using pheromones for mating disruption, or “attract and kill” approaches, can provide excellent suppression of key lepidopteran pests in agriculture. Important successes to date include codling moth in pome fruit, oriental fruit moth in peaches and nectarines, tomato pinworm in vegetables, pink bollworm in cotton and omnivorous leafroller in vineyards. Large-scale implementation projects have yielded significant reductions in pesticide use while maintaining acceptably low crop-damage levels. Because of some difficulties with high populations of pests, these programs should not be viewed as stand-alone strategies but rather as one tactic within a suite of integrated pest management options.