Area-wide management/maximum suppression of pink bollworm in southern california

摘要

Sterile insect technology has been used for 25 + years to prevent establishment of the pink bollworm. Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) as an economic pest in the San Joaquin Valley. CA (Staten et al. 1993). This is an exclusion program dependent largely on sterile insects over a very large area against targeted low level adult population. Migration is heavily implicated from southern desert growing regions. In the pest, this technology has not been applicable against high populations in a generally infested area. To obtain controlling ratios would simply be cost prohibitive. With the full development of cost effective pheromone technology, shifts to determinant cotton in a compressed season and now genetically engineered cotton varieties (a Bacillus thuringensis endotoxin producing plant defined as Bt cotton), use of sterile insect technologies may be expanded. We have an excellent potential for a management/eradication program that is expected to eliminate the pest potential of this species in the Southwest U.S.