
Click image for caption and other photo
information. Read the
magazine
story about the sprays and other ARS projects of areawide pest
management. New Sprays,
Trap Promise to Slash Insecticide Use in America's Corn BeltBy Don
Comis November 20, 2001While
Agricultural Research Service scientists
are not about to satisfy a plant pest's craving for pumpkin by serving pie,
they are only too happy to serve a family recipe to die for. The ingredients of that recipe, including cucurbitacins and other chemicals
from the pumpkin and gourd or cucurbit family, attract corn rootworm beetles.
One of these ingredients is in three new, low-insecticide bait sprays and a
monitoring trap for the beetles. These commercial products have emerged from a 6-year joint ARS-university
research and demonstration program in the Corn Belt. The bait sprays are
CideTrak, made by Trece, Inc., of Salinas,
Calif.; Invite, made by FFP Agriscience, Inc., of Eustis, Fla.; and SLAM, made
by MicroFlo, Inc., of Memphis, Tenn. The trap is the Pherocon Corn Rootworm
Trap, also made by Trece. The trap lures beetles with volatile plant chemicals. It enables farmers or
consultants to make sample counts of the beetles to decide when the numbers are
high enough to warrant spraying with CideTrak, Invite, or SLAM. The baits are sprayed aerially on corn leaves where the beetles eat. The
sprays form drops containing cucurbitacins and insecticide. The cucurbitacins
cause the beetles to feed almost exclusively on the drops, so they ingest a
lethal dose of insecticide. CideTrak and SLAM get their cucurbitacins from wild
buffalo gourd root powder, while Invite relies on a Hawkesbury watermelon juice
ingredient. The actual active insecticidal ingredient in the three sprays is an ounce or
less per acre, which is 95 to 98 percent less than in conventional sprays. The bitter cucurbitacin doesn't appeal to other insects, so it is safe for
bees and other beneficial insects. The musky smell released when a cantaloupe
is sliced comes primarily from cucurbitacin. To learn more about this research, see a more detailed story in the
November issue of
Agricultural Research magazine. ARS is the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's chief scientific research agency. U.S. Department of Agriculture |