—by Ross Courtney
Researchers and consultants are trying to depend useful bugs in and round pear orchards close to Hood River, Oregon, utilizing sticky card traps with lures, to tell built-in pest administration selections.
Not that there’s a single right method to scout for predators, however Jeff Heater prefers the traps, paired with 4 lures scented with plant volatiles, over the standard method of tapping on a department and shortly figuring out what drops onto a tray earlier than the bugs fly off.
“Sticky playing cards are a lot quicker,” stated Heater, a G.S. Lengthy Co. crop advisor.
Heater has tried beat trays, however he gave up on them as a result of he didn’t suppose he was discovering sufficient beneficials to take the time price it. Now, he simply modifications the hanging traps as soon as per week throughout his rounds, and he likes the outcomes.
Collectively, he and his counterparts at Wilbur-Ellis and Chamberlin Agriculture handle about 50 trapping websites all through the Hood River Valley. They depend lacewing, deraeocoris, trechnites and different predators and ship the information to Chris Adams, Oregon State College entomologist on the Mid-Columbia Agricultural Analysis and Extension Middle in Hood River. Heater makes his counts then delivers the playing cards to Adams, so he can supply one other set of eyes.
The consultants use their site-specific counts to advise their purchasers, whereas Adams crunches the information and sends it out through his weekly entomology updates for the entire space.
The objective is to determine formal thresholds for the useful populations to assist inform spraying and different IPM selections.
“It’s going to take years to determine all of it out,” Adams stated.
Adams had been experimenting with the traps with companions in Washington underneath a three-year Washington Tree Fruit Analysis Fee grant. Throughout that mission, they discovered correlations between psylla and predator populations. Not surprisingly, once they had quite a lot of predators on the traps, they measured much less psylla stress. Adams additionally discovered the traps tracked year-to-year cycles in psylla and pure enemy populations.
The mission wrapped up with some leftover lures, so Adams issued them to the native consultants to maintain the information flowing. Adams has utilized for Western Sustainable Agriculture Analysis and Schooling funding to proceed the mission and supply these consultants some predator identification coaching.
It’s not as if Adams hates beat trays, the scouting technique researchers and crop consultants in Washington are utilizing to trace useful populations and make threshold-based administration selections. His group is utilizing them to contribute information for Robert Orpet, a Washington State College collaborator additionally finding out useful insect populations.
Each strategies have benefits.
The sticky playing cards skew towards grownup flying bugs drawn to the 4 plant volatiles. Deraeocoris, lacewings and yellow jackets are frequent catches. They might fly away the second you whack a department for a beat tray pattern.
And don’t fear: The playing cards hold on only a few pattern timber and received’t lure sufficient bugs to decrease the inhabitants and undo the good thing about beneficials, Adams stated.
The traps don’t web many earwigs or spiders, psylla predators that don’t fly or use plant volatiles to trace prey, Adams stated. Beat trays are higher for these.
That’s why Chamberlin Agriculture employees are nonetheless utilizing each.
“Is there a means we might mix the 2 collectively?” stated Bruce Kiyokawa, a Chamberlin crop advisor.
The strategy continues to be new, so thresholds usually are not but canonized. However the traps have knowledgeable selections whereas Adams builds his database, Kiyokawa stated.
“It’s given us the arrogance in some circumstances to say, ‘Let’s let it go one other week to see what occurs,’” he stated.
In March, one in all Heater’s traps caught 100 deraeocoris, prompting him to advise a grower to completely skip early spring sprays. It turned out that the neighboring block had simply been sprayed with Encompass (kaolin). Heater speculates that pushed the predators into his block.
Later, within the warmth of summer season, the identical lure additionally caught excessive counts of yellow jackets and bald-faced hornets.
The orchard nearly by no means has psylla stress; Heater figures the predator inhabitants is why.
That revelation made him enthusiastic about Adams’ sticky card thought. He had been skeptical up till that time.
“That’s most likely the one instance that precipitated me to get smitten by this mission,” he stated. •
