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Title: MECHANISMS UNDERLYING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FOOD PROCESSING IPM PROGRAMS

Author
item Toews, Michael
item Campbell, James - Jim
item Arthur, Franklin

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/5/2006
Publication Date: 4/5/2006
Citation: Toews, M.D., Campbell, J.F., Arthur, F.H. 2006. Mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of food processing ipm programs. Meeting Abstract. Fifth National IPM Symposium, St. Louis, MO, April 4-6, 2006.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Comprehensive integrated pest management programs designed for commercial food processing facilities typically rely on sanitation, application of residual insecticides, and pheromone-baited traps for monitoring. The purpose of these studies was to characterize changes in insect behavior and age structure resulting from the use of residual insecticides that may complicate monitoring. Studies were conducted in pilot-scale warehouses where appropriate replication and control of immigration and emigration could be managed. Protected food patches infested with known quantities of the red flour beetle were placed in each warehouse. Insects in food patches, number of dead adults on the floor, and insect captures in traps were tabulated weekly. There were always more dead insects and fewer insect captures in warehouses treated with pyrethroids than in untreated warehouses or warehouses treated with insect growth regulators. However, sampling of food patches generally showed no overall differences in the number of larvae, pupae, or adults regardless of treatment. Number of larvae per trap increased throughout the study while number of adults per trap decreased, suggesting a change in the population age structure. In a 20-wk study, dead adults in pyrethroid-treated warehouses and adult captures in untreated warehouses followed similar trends but the treatments had little impact on immatures in food patches. Comparisons of infested and uninfested food patches surrounded by a pyrethroid band in the same warehouse revealed similar populations after an eight-week period. These results strongly suggest that managers practicing integrated pest management need to understand how insect populations change as a result of interventions, and that these changes have profound implications for trap interpretation.