An official website of the United States government.
To develop and implement the newly discovered codling moth bisexual attractant for use both as a pest population monitoring lure and tool and as a direct pest population control tactics. These monitoring and control tactics will be used to reduce and manage pest populations and reduce Aspergillus infection rates and aflatoxin contamination.
Codling moth pest populations will be monitored with the bisexual kairomone attractant and compared with the traditional pheromone male attractant, population emergence and flight will be monitored and studied in forty walnut orchards ranging from organic to conventional insecticide management practices. For demonstrating and developing the kairomone for direct control strategies experiments will be conducted in walnut orchards to study the kairomone attractants use in mass-trapping, attracticide and disruption of mating and ovipositions. Impact will be judged by walnut damage reduction and reduction in mold and aflatoxin levels.