Utilizing a thorough Navel Orangeworm (Amyelois transitella), or NOW, control program is crucial to protect your crop and preserve yields. Five main components should be used to create a strong defense: Winter sanitation, Monitoring, Mating Disruption, Insecticides, Timely harvest. By focusing on the above five principles, your orchard will have the best support possible in the fight against NOW.

As one of the core principles of NOW control, mating disruption covers the orchard with NOW’s naturally produced pheromones which makes it more difficult for males to sense the real female pheromone. This results in fewer males mating with NOW females and leads to a reduction in fertile eggs laid on new crop nuts. UC and industry research has shown this process leads to a 50% or more reduction in nut damage due to NOW. Typically, mating disruption is used in conjunction with the other 4 components of a quality IPM program for NOW to ensure you keep your pest damage in check.

The damage reduction due to mating disruption has a big impact on the grower’s bottom line. Not only are growers preserving their yields by reducing damaged nuts in the field, but they’re also able to hit higher quality bonuses at the processor by lowering their damage. These two factors can equate to big savings at the end of the season. A study by UC’s David Haviland shows that mating disruption typically pays for itself at around 1% predicted damage in almonds (Haviland 2021). Additionally, orchards with high yields and higher damage can improve their margins, as NOW mating disruption still provides damage reduction at higher pest pressures. Given these conditions where mating disruptions provides a positive ROI, most orchards would benefit from the use of mating disruption.

When choosing your mating disruption, Trécé’s CIDETRAK^® NOW MESO^TM offers benefits that are unmatched in the market. MESO dispensers utilize 15-28 dispensers/acre, based on the extent of your pest pressure, to ensure thorough pheromone coverage in your orchard – even in oddly shaped blocks. Additionally, as the only available passive dispenser, CIDETRAK NOW MESO releases pheromone 24/7 for the length of the season. There are no mechanics or adjuvants involved, which allows the product to be used in organic orchards. Once CIDETRAK NOW MESO is applied in your orchard, you can be confident NOW mating is being prevented and your crop is protected all season long.

More information regarding PHEROCON^® monitoring and CIDETRAK mating disruption may be seen on Trécé’s website or under IPM PARTNER^® Guidelines for Use.

Citation:
David R Haviland, Jhalendra P Rijal, Stephanie M Rill, Bradley S Higbee, Charles S Burks, Chelsea A Gordon, Management of Navel Orangeworm (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) Using Four Commercial Mating Disruption Systems in California Almonds, Journal of Economic Entomology, Volume 114, Issue 1, February 2021, Pages 238–247,https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toaa297

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