Mating disruption of the carpenter moth, Cossus insularis (Staudinger) (Lepidoptera: Cossidae) with synthetic sex pheromone in Japanese pear orchards

•Mating disruption inhibited the attraction of wild male moths to pheromone traps.•No tethered female moth mated in the pear orchard under mating disruption.•Forty-six percent of the tethered females mated in the untreated pear orchard.•Damage by the boring larvae decreased in the pear orchards under mating disruption.

Mating disruption of the carpenter moth, Cossus insularis Staudinger (Lepidoptera: Cossidae), with a synthetic version of its sex pheromone, a mixture of (E)-3-tetradecenyl acetate and (Z)-3-tetradecenyl acetate, was tested for three successive years in Japanese pear (Pyrus pyrifolia var. culta) orchards. Pheromone trap catches, percentage mating of tethered females, and tree damage were measured in both the pheromone-treated and untreated control orchards. The attraction of male adults to pheromone traps was completely disrupted, and the mating of the tethered females was completely inhibited by the treatment of synthetic pheromones. The percentage of damaged trees in the pheromone-treated orchard decreased over the course of the experiment, while the damage percentage did not decrease in the untreated orchard. These results show that mating disruption with the synthetic sex pheromone is promising for the reduction of damage caused by C. insularis in apple and Japanese pear orchards.

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