WCN December 2019

emainder of the growing season.
Haviland said CheckMate, a dispenser-based
mating disruption (MD)
product is registered for use for ten plus
years. The dispensers are placed at a
rate of 250 per acre and last throughout
the growing season at a cost of about
$115 per acre. A microencapsulated
version of the product, VMB-F is a
liquid formulation of the pheromone at
a lower cost of $20 per acre but it is not
approved for organic production.
Both formulations reduce mating
success by VMB. In Kern County field
trials last year, CheckMate VMB-F held
vine mealybug male trapping levels at a
lower rate than other MD products.
Haviland said one application disrupts
VMB mating for about 30 days
and efficacy is expected to increase with
multiple years of use.
Spotted Wing Drosophila
Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) is
an invasive fruit fly species that was first
found in California in 2008 and infests
ripening cherries and berry crops. Kent
Daane, UCCE Specialist at UC Berkeley
advised growers to first control with a
broad-spectrum products, then determine
efficacy of other control tools.
Daane said there are pupal and
larval parasitoids that will suppress
SWD numbers coming into orchards,
but they are not found inside orchards.
Since spotted wing drosophila is native
to Asia, Daane said researchers have
traveled to its historical range to search
for parasitoids with the potential for
controlling SWD.
Explorations in SWD native habitat
found a number of larval-pupal parasitoids
associated with SWD. In China and
Japan parasitism levels were high and a
Japanese strain was found to be specific
in attacking SWD larvae in fresh fruits.
Daane said three larval-pupal parasitoids
from Asia were chosen for study. G.
brasiliensis, L. j. japonica, and A. japonica,
were and imported into quarantine
labs for evaluation as classical biological
control agents.
Daane said that when multiple parasitoid
species co-exist they likely work
synergistically to suppress spotted wing
Spotted wing drosophila is an invasive fruit fly species that has become established in California and
causes economic damage to ripening cherry and berry crops. Damage is caused by maggots feeding on
fruit pulp.
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Continued on Page 18
December 2019
www.wcngg.com
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