Associate Professor University of Georgia Athens, Georgia
San Jose scale (SJS), Comstockaspis pernicious (Comstock), is a phytophagous insect pest species that infests an enormous variety of plant hosts worldwide and is currently one of the most devastating pests of peach production in the southern US. After years of intense scale management, we are now facing the risk of severe losses in tree health and productivity. Thus, southern peach growers are desperate for a more effective and sustainable strategy for managing SJS. One such tactic may be “mating disruption,” which utilizes sex pheromones to prevent male insects from finding females and mating. After several years evaluating the potential use of pheromone-based mating disruption for SJS management in southern peach production, this tactic has the potential to significantly suppress SJS populations. However, it is still unknown how far the range the sex pheromone plume is effective and how it can impact collection of male SJS adults. Thus, we assessed how individual mating disruption dispensers impacted male trap captures within and outside of mating disruption in southeastern peach orchards. The results and implications from this study will be discussed here.