Applications of sex pheromones for pest control: the use of mating disruption technique in Greece from 1986 to 2011

Abstract: Mating disruption is a worldwide commercially viable pest management technique. In the past 20 years numerous pheromone-mediated mating disruption studies have been applied in Greece, targeting, mainly for lepidopteran pests. The major limitation for the further adoption of mating disruption in Greece is the typical small plot size of agricultural fields, which is less than 5 ha in average. Herein, we review the status of knowledge about mating disruption studies in Greece, based on literature, during a 25-year period (1986-2011). Our data concerns mainly research since commercial use of MD is not published. According to our knowledge, commercial use of mating disruption is applied only by a minority of farmers, who act individually without any obligation either to publish research results or to make the data available to others