Grapholita molesta

Sex pheromone-based monitoring is the most effective survey method for detecting pest insects. It can be used for early detection and warning of pest invasion, taxonomic and biodiversity investigations, population density and dispersion trends estimation, forecasting and threshold determination, mapping of pest infested areas and risk assessment, recommendation of treatments and timing of application, measuring of treatment efficacy and impact on pest density (Sexton and Il’ichev, 2000).
Timing of chemical treatments can be determined by monitoring with sex pheromone traps and accumulation of degree-days (Rice et al., 1996). Different trap designs and sex pheromone lures were compared in field trials which suggested that sex pheromone traps could be used for monitoring seasonal abundance and determining biofix dates (male catches) for phenology models (Zalom, 1994).
Fermenting brown sugar, molasses, fruit juices and port wine have been used as bait traps to attract G. molesta males and females in fruit orchards, but were not species specific and also attracted many beneficial insects and pollinators (Yetter and Steiner, 1931). The addition of terpinyl acetate to fermenting brown sugar solution traps increased the attractiveness of bait traps to G. molesta males and, most importantly, mated females.
A comparison of sex pheromone and bait trap catches over a number of seasons in Australia demonstrated that they both recorded similar infestation figures and peak moth numbers (Rothschild et al., 1984). Sex pheromone traps designed to attract males in conventional orchards are not reliable under mating disruption. However, terpinyl acetate-fermenting brown sugar solution traps effectively attract G. molesta males and females in orchards under mating disruption treatment (Il’ichev et al., 1999;Il’ichev et al., 2002).
Recently, attempts had been made to combine both traps in one and use it for monitoring of G. molesta in disrupted orchards in Argentina and conventional orchards in Chile (Cichon et al., 2012). New host-plant attractants have recently been tested to improve pest monitoring, particularly for mated females of G. molesta in orchards treated with mating disruption (Il’ichev et al., 2009;Lu et al., 2012).