Auto-disorientation and mass-trapping of Agriotes tauricus Heyd.

Abstract: In this study, the efficacy of two mating disruption methods (auto-disorientation eitheralone or in combination with mass-trapping) to prevent mating of Agriotes tauricus Heyd. adultswas compared in Kuban region of southwestern Russia. The auto-disorientation device wasloaded with 2g of electrostatic powder containing 30mg of geranyl isovalerate, (E,E)-farnesylisovalerate and (E8)-hydroxygeraniole-1,8-diisovalerate at a ratio of 75:5:20. In addition, adispenser loaded with 20mg of pheromone was fastened under the cover of the device to increaseattraction of insects. Field tests revealed that the effective application of both disruption methodsdepends on the density of devices and the amount of pheromone loaded per device. In the autodisorientationexperiment, the efficacy of mating disruption was about 70% with pheromoneapplication rate of up to 135-200mg/hectare/season released from 9 auto-disorientation devicesper hectare. On the other hand, increasing the pheromone application rate to 200-450mg/hectare/season by combining the auto-disorientation method with mass trapping using9-16 devices per hectare resulted in higher efficacy up to 91-94%. Thus, mating disruptionsuccessfully reduced the relative number of wireworms in the soil from 25-30 to 2.2-2.6 larvaeper square meter.