D3393: Mating disruption’s impact on codling moth dispersive distance and capture in Washington apple orchards

Codling moth, Cydia pomonella (L) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), is the key pest of apples worldwide. It has been the target of control efforts in North America since first detections in the 1750’s. The caterpillars cause damage directly to fruit by the action of larval feeding, rendering fruit unfit for sale as a fresh commodity. Without proper management, marketable fruit losses can be substantial. For the past thirty years, pheromone-based mating disruption has provided growers with a commercially viable means of managing codling moth on an estimated 243,000 hectares of commercial apples, pears, and walnuts worldwide. Although mating disruption is an effective tactic, monitoring in orchards employing this technology is complicated by the use of at least ten commercially available lure formulations, and interpretation of moths captured in traps baited with those lures is unclear. The goal of this study, using five different multiple-component, pheromone/kairomone lures in orchards with and without mating disruption, was to quantify for each lure: 1) absolute C. pomonella density from lure-baited trap captures, 2) minimum number of lure-baited traps needed per area for effective monitoring, and 3) effective distance that lure-baited traps attract moths.