Strategies For Now: Perhaps it's time to reconsider how to defend almonds from this destructive pest

摘要

THERE'S an old saying that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. The theory behind that saying could hold the key for defeating the most destructive pest almond growers face, navel orangeworm (NOW), says Walt Bentley, a University of California entomologist and Cooperative Extension IPM adviser. The pest is a scavenger that feeds on nuts as well as other crops such as figs and raisins, and Bentley believes that food attraction could be the key to minimizing its damage. Much of the recent IPM research on combating NOW has focused on mating disruption. That makes a lot of sense, because mating disruption has proved to be extremely effective with other pests that also wreak a lot of havoc in their worm stage, such as codling moth and Oriental fruit moth. Mating disruption relies on the release of sex pheromones to confuse the adult moths so they can't mate, or at least are delayed in mating. If they can't mate as they normally would, populations rapidly dwindle.