3RD INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON TECHNOLOGY - ENGINEERING & SCIENCE - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia (2017-02-09)

Joint Integrated Pest Management On Lobesia Botrana (lep.: Tortricidae), And Grapholita Molesta, In Germany And Brazil
Agricultural technology, less glamorous than space-, medical- and computer-technologies, may eventually occupy a higher future rank than today when in the middle of the 21st century the world population reaches the ten billion mark and vociferously demands to be sufficiently fed. Quite unfortunately, weeds, insects, fungi and bacteria do not respect the table prepared for ourselves but claim their share. Thus, conflicts are unavoidable. Around the turn of the millennium it became clear that the well proven toxicological approach to plant protection against insect pests cannot be effective forever. Instead, the development of resistant strains is a worldwide, a fundamental phenomenon. New approaches are indispensable. Therefore, the authors investigated insect pheromones for their ability to disrupt natural mating communication in insects by applying an overdose (but due to their ultrahigh efficiency still a rather low concentration) which has to be broadcast over cultivated fields during critical time periods of the natural mating season. The more evenly spaced these sources for communication disruption are, the more effective they are for the insect species considered. -Towards this end, we explored novel insect pheromone dispenser types. We found electrospun mesofibers within the diameter range of 600 to 1400 nm (the ”meso”-range) to be quite effective dispensers. In the case of the European grape vine moth Lobesia botrana there is experimental evidence that mesofibers charged by electrospinning with (E,Z)-7,9-dodecadienyl acetate will disrupt mating communication within the boundaries of the vineyard. The effect will last for 7 weeks and then has to be renewed for the 2nd and 3rd flight period of the moths. . We now want to bring this effect in G. molesta also to the attention of European IPM managers who were previously informed of the mating disruption effect. The mesofibers used in the experiments are equally effective compared to the older ampoule type marketed by BASF or the newer spaghetti type dispensers by SHIN ETSU. There are no environmental concerns against mesofibers since both the Ecoflex® polyester and the pheromone are equally biodegradable and are no environmental burden. Moreover, the synthesis of both components, polymer and pheromone, is possible using renewable resources. -Similarly, the Oriental fruit moth Grapholita molesta (Lep.: Tortricidae) can, as our Brazilian colleagues recently found, be lured and thus quantitatively monitored by their sex specific pheromone ISCAlure Grafolita® embedded in nanofibers of the PCL/PEG type, when exposed in commercial peach orchards near Porto Alegre in Brazil. Specific experience in engineering is, however, required for putting the pheromone filled mesofibers not manually, but mechanically into the vineyards (Figure 1). We solved this challenge by integrating the mesofibers into the holding ropes an employing a modified commercially available cultivating machine doing the weeding, pruning and binding operations simultaneously from one platform. Future refinements call for automatic deployment of the prefabricated mesofibers.
Hans E. Hummel Andreas Greiner, Bruna Czarnobai de Jorge, Michael Breuer, Detlef. F. Hein Hein, Simone S. Langner