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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Parlier, California » San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Sciences Center » Commodity Protection and Quality Research » Research » Research Project #437923

Research Project: Improving Effectiveness and Sustainability of Gill’s Mealybug Management Program in Pistachio

Location: Commodity Protection and Quality Research

Project Number: 2034-43000-043-016-T
Project Type: Trust Fund Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Mar 1, 2020
End Date: Feb 28, 2025

Objective:
To establish a baseline for susceptibility of Gill’s mealybug populations in California to Centaur and Movento and determine toxicity of various insecticides to Gill’s mealybug.

Approach:
1. To determine baseline susceptibility, Gill’s mealybugs (GMBs) will be exposed to serial dilutions of Centaur and Movento using Petri Dish and Systemic Uptake Bioassays respectively. To calculate lethal concentration, dose response data for both insecticides will be subjected to probit analysis using the polo program. 2. Toxicity of five chemicals (Azadirachtin, Pyriproxyfen, Flupyradifurone, Bifenthrin, Fenpropathrin) to Gill’s mealybug will be determined in greenhouse trials. These chemicals were selected based on their effectiveness in controlling mealybugs and sucking pests in other crops and represented a wide range of modes of action. GMB survival data will be transformed (square root) before analysis by ANOVA with means separation using Fisher’s LSD.