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10-Minute Presentation

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

10-min: P-IE, IPM - Horticulture 2

Optimizing repellents and attractants as a push-pull strategy for ambrosia beetles in horticultural tree crops

Tuesday, November 12, 2024
8:36 AM – 8:48 AM MST
Location: Phoenix Convention Center, 127 C, PCC
Oral Presentation
Invasive ambrosia beetles (ABs) are pests of serious economic concern, causing millions of dollars in horticultural and crop tree loss annually. Ambrosia beetle attraction to ethanol and avoidance of verbenone and methyl salicylate may provide a push-pull system of semiochemical management, where ethanol-baited annihilative traps are used to “pull” beetles away from production trees, while verbenone and methyl salicylate pouches hung from production trees “push” beetles away. We conducted four years of ethanol release rate experiments, aimed at finding the most attractive ethanol rate to four species of major concern. We then assessed the efficacy of verbenone and methyl salicylate as an AB repellent in the presence of ethanol. Lastly, we flood stressed 168 container-grown trees at several nursery sites over two years to induce AB attacks—84 control trees, and 84 trees with verbenone and methyl salicylate repellents and ethanol traps posted around them. Results showed that ethanol lures with release rates between 0.5 and 2 g/day tend to trap the most ABs of interest, but that the optimum varies among years and species. Our results also supported verbenone as an effective repellent for ABs, with methyl salicylate not being significantly different from the control. Our results from the full push-pull field trial showed significantly fewer AB attacks, adults, larvae, and eggs in push-pull trees compared to control trees. Past push-pull experiments have had mixed results, but with the fine-tuned parameters in our study, we demonstrate the efficacy of push-pull strategies against ABs.