The larva of the alfalfa
looper moth consumes the
foliage of many species of
crops, such as this potato
plant.
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Gardens may harbor fewer caterpillars this summer, thanks to new lures
developed by Agricultural Research
Service scientists in Wapato, Washington.
The lures, derived from molasses and floral odors, tantalize both male
and female mothsthe caterpillar's adult stagewith the promise
of nectar. Instead, the insects fly into the opening of a lure-dispensing
trap, never to return.
Peter Landolt, an entomologist who leads ARS's Fruit and Vegetable
Insects Research Unit in Wapato, and Connie Smithhisler, a chemist there,
have been investigating such lures since 1996 as an alternative to chemically
controlling the pestswhether they be in backyard gardens or crop
fields and fruit orchards. Among the top offenders: loopers, cutworms,
fruitworms, armyworms, and corn earworms.
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Chemist Connie Smithhisler and
research leader Peter Landolt
review results from analyses
of flower volatiles.
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Most current moth lures act on the male insect's sense of smell. In
the Pacific Northwest, for example, apple growers adorn their trees
with dispensers that saturate the air with the chemical sex attractant,
or pheromone, of female codling moths. The males find it irresistible.
And it masks the females' true chemical "come hither," confounding
the males' ability to meet and mate.
Lures are also used in monitoring stations that furnish growers with
early warning of a moth species' whereabouts, concentration, and capacity
to cause harm serious enough to warrant taking action. But most moth
lures offer no way of keeping tabs on females. This makes it difficult
to estimate the pest's population over a finite area and the timing
of egg laying. Says Landolt, "The result can be a false positiveindicating
a problem pest population when one doesn't existor a false negativeindicating
no problem exists when mated females are present and laying eggs."
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Graduate student Leo Camelo
sets up a killing station for
alfalfa looper moths in a
potato field plot.
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Nor can today's moth lures be used to round up females for mass trapping
or elimination with lure-and-kill strategies. In pest control, that's
a battle less than half won.
"If you're only killing off males, you're not having an immediate
impact on the pest's reproduction," Landolt explains. Males of
some species, like alfalfa loopers, are prodigious breeders, he adds.
"A male will mate with lots of females. So if you have an attractant
that lures and kills 75 percent of males, the impact on reproduction
will be negligible, since the surviving 25 percent can pick up the slack.
But every time you remove a female, you're killing up to 1,000 eggs."
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Adult moth of the alfalfa
looper on an alfalfa plant.
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This March, Sterling International, Inc., of Spokane, Washington, commercialized
the ARS scientists' solution to these problems: a blend of volatile
compounds (odors) from fermented molasses that attracts both male and
female moths.
Sterling commercially licensed the sugar-derived lure and other ARS-patented
attractants composing the company's SMARTrap dispenser product. Other
patented lures used in this trap are based on moth responses to odors
from flowers of Oregon grape, honeysuckle, and gaura flowers. These
floral attractants are particularly alluring to moths called loopers.
Marketed for garden use, Sterling's trapping product combines the attractants
with an LED (light-emitting diode) to lure night-flying moths to their
doom before they get a chance to mate and lay eggs.
One draw of using molasses-based lures for pest control, whether for
male or female moths, is their relative specificity. Unlike synthetic
insecticides, which can sometimes harm good-guy bugs, these lures are
largely specific to moths. This means they're not likely to attract
a ladybug or Monarch butterfly, for example.
Anti-Aroma Therapy for Moths
In April, the researchers began field testing another lure formulation
that attracts alfalfa loopers, cabbage loopers, and corn earworms. Instead
of sugars from molasses, this lure is a derivative of odors emitted
by Oregon grape, an evergreen shrub whose flowers bloom at dusk.
Oregon grape's waxy, holly-shaped leaves; edible, blue berries; and
low growth make the shrub a popular ornamental in Pacific Coast states.
But that's not what drew Landolt's attention to the shrub in 1996, when
he first arrived to work in Yakima, Washington. On returning to his
hotel one evening, he spied a cluster of moths fluttering about the
shrub's small, yellow flowers. The entomologist in him made a mental
note, but he didn't act on the observation until 2000.
Along with Smithhisler, says Landolt, "We isolated and identified
the chemical odors coming off the flowers and field tested them in blends
of one, two, and three compounds at a time." Based on trap counts
of captured alfalfa looper moths in corn, alfalfa, and potato fields,
the most attractive blend proved to be a combination of two compounds:
phenylacetaldehyde and beta myrcene.
Before the scientists published their findings, ARS filed for patent
protection on the floral-based lure and the methods of using it for
moth monitoring and trapping applications. In 2003, Leonardo Camelo,
a Washington State University graduate student working in Landolt's
lab, conducted tests of "killing stations" baited with this
lure, reducing alfalfa looper numbers by 75 percent. That killing station
was a modified badminton birdie coated with a pesticide. Camelo is now
field testing its use in reducing looper reproduction as well as evaluating
a commercial version of the killing station. Designed by a Bend, Oregon,
firm collaborating with Washington State University and Landolt's lab,
the station combines the lure with a panel coated with a small dose
of permethrin to kill the moths. Besides alfalfa loopers, Camelo is
conducting similar trials with corn earworms.
Insecticide spraying can sometimes be a farmer's only recourse against
caterpillar pests. But luring insects to their doom can ease the need
for such spraying. Says Landolt, "It's a way to reduce the overall
amount of pesticide used. That means less contact between pesticide
and the environment, food crops, agricultural workers, and beneficial
insects."By Jan
Suszkiw, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.
This research is part of Crop Protection and Quarantine, an ARS
National Program (#304) described on the World Wide Web at www.nps.ars.usda.gov.
Peter J. Landolt
and Constance L. Smithhisler
are with the USDA-ARS Yakima
Agricultural Research Laboratory, 5230 Konnowac Pass Rd., Wapato,
WA 98951; phone (509) 454-6570 [Landolt], (509) 454-5654 [Smithhisler],
fax (509) 454-5646.
"New, Unisex Lure for Moths" was published in the
November 2004
issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
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