Mating disruption of California red scale, Aonidiella aurantii Maskell (Homoptera: Diaspididae), using biodegradable mesoporous pheromone dispensers.
BACKGROUND
The control of California red scale, Aonidiella aurantii (Maskell), has encountered many difficulties, which has raised interest in alternative control methods. Up to now, the A. aurantii sex pheromone has been used only for monitoring. In a previous work the authors described a biodegradable mesoporous pheromone dispenser for mating disruption. To verify the efficacy of these dispensers, three field trials were conducted, and the results are shown in this paper.


RESULTS
The study of the release profile of these dispensers revealed a mean pheromone emission value of 269 microg day(-1) and levels of residual pheromone of 10% at the end of 250 days. During the second flight, an A. aurantii male catch reduction of 98% was achieved in the mating disruption plot of trial 1, 93.5% in trial 2 and 76.7% in trial 3. During the third flight, reductions were 94.1, 82.9 and 68.1% in trials 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Considering damaged fruit with more than five scales, reductions of about 80 and 60% were obtained in the mating disruption plots of trials 2 and 3, respectively, compared with an untreated plot, and a reduction of about 70% in trial 1 compared with an oil-treated plot.


CONCLUSIONS
Mating disruption has been found to be an efficient technique to control this pest, working equally well to a correctly sprayed oil treatment. Further studies are needed to improve the determination of the time of dispenser application and evaluate the effects of the pheromone on natural enemies.
Centro de Ecología Química Agrícola-Instituto Agroforestal del Mediterráneo, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
Sandra
S
Vacas
Cristina
C
Alfaro
Vicente
V
Navarro-Llopis
Jaime
J
Primo
D000818:Animals; D002957:Citrus; D004347:Drug Interactions; D005260:Female; D006430:Hemiptera / Q000187:drug effects*; D007300:Insect Control / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D009821:Oils / Q000494:pharmacology; D016062:Porosity; D012724:Sex Attractants / Q000494:pharmacology*; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects*
D009821:Oils; D012724:Sex Attractants