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Title: Evaluation of two fumigants for rapid treatment of packaged seeds

Author
item Campbell, James - Jim
item Arthur, Franklin

Submitted to: Methyl Bromide Alternatives and Emissions Research Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/8/2006
Publication Date: 11/6/2006
Citation: Campbell, J.F., Arthur, F.H. 2006. Evaluation of two fumigants for rapid treatment of packaged seeds [abstract]. Methyl Bromide Alternatives and Emissions Research Conference Proceedings, Orlando, FL, November 6-9, 2006.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Commodity fumigation of packaged seed stocks prior to shipping is performed with the goals of both eliminating the risk of transporting live stored-product insect pests and other incidental species, and protecting these valuable commodities from insect feeding damage. To meet industry production goals, often the turnaround times on these pre-shipment treatments needs to be very short. The overall objective of this project was to evaluate the efficacy of Eco2Fume® and Profume® against stored-product insects in pallets of packaged seed with the goals of obtaining complete mortality of immature and adult stages of selected stored-product pest species and minimizing the exposure time. Because fumigation efficacy is influenced by the chemical compound and concentration, exposure time to target concentration (CT product), temperature, and the target insect species and life-stage, all of these factors were considered in this study. None of the treatments tested at target temperature of 27°C resulted in 100% mortality across all the trials. Even using small fumigation chambers it proved difficult to consistently obtain the same temperatures and gas concentrations, which may have contributed to the variation in results we obtained. Our study illustrates the real-world challenges of fumigating storage structures or seed stocks because of the variety of conditions encountered during fumigant application. For both Eco2Fume and Profume, our results suggest that the recommendations for gas concentration were close to a threshold in terms of providing 100% mortality of the insects inside the envelopes. Of the species tested, red flour beetle eggs were the most difficult to kill for both fumigants. Therefore, the use of the red flour beetle egg card bioassay that we developed during this project represents an easier and faster method to test the effectiveness of the fumigant.