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Title: Monitoring Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) in Pilot-Scale Warehouses Treated with B-Cyfluthrin: Are Residual Insecticides and Trapping Compatible?

Author
item TOEWS, MICHAEL - UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
item Arthur, Franklin
item Campbell, James - Jim

Submitted to: Bulletin of Entomological Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/29/2008
Publication Date: 3/1/2009
Citation: Toews, M.D., Arthur, F.H., Campbell, J.F. 2009. Monitoring Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) in Pilot-Scale Warehouses Treated with B-Cyfluthrin: Are Residual Insecticides and Trapping Compatible?. Bulletin of Entomological Research. 99(2): 121-129. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0007485308006172.

Interpretive Summary: Integrated pest management strategies for cereal processing facilities often include both pheromone-baited pitfall traps for population monitoring and crack and crevice applications of a residual insecticide for control. It is unknown how insecticide applications may be affecting the insect captures in the traps. In a 15-wk study conducted in pilot-scale warehouses, we showed that the use of a residual insecticide greatly increased mortality of adult red flour beetles and thereby decreased their capture in the pheromone traps. However, the insect population density in food patches remained at similar levels regardless of insecticide treatment. These data suggest that pest management professionals find complementary alternative methods of population estimation when used concurrently with residual pesticides.

Technical Abstract: Integrated pest management strategies for cereal processing facilities often include both pheromone-baited pitfall traps and crack and crevice applications of a residual insecticide like cyfluthrin. In replicated pilot-scale warehouses, a 15-week long experiment was conducted to compare population trends suggested by insect captures with direct estimates obtained by sampling the food patches in untreated and cyfluthrin-treated warehouses. Warehouses were treated, provisioned with food patches, and then infested with all life stages of Tribolium castaneum. Food patches, both those initially infested and additional uninfested, were surrounded by cyfluthrin bands to evaluate if insects would cross the bands. Results show that insect captures correlated with population trends determined by direct product samples in the untreated warehouses, but not the cyfluthrin-treated warehouses. However, dead insects recovered from the floor correlated with the insect densities observed with direct samples in the cyfluthrin-treated warehouses. Initially uninfested food patches were exploited immediately and after 6-weeks harbored similar infestation densities to the initially infested food patches. These data show that pest management professionals relying on insect captures in pheromone-baited traps in cyfluthrin-treated structures could be deceived into believing that a residual insecticide application was suppressing population growth, when the population was actually increasing at the same rate as an untreated population.