Posts Tagged: trap
Hey, Wait, Take Me With You!
Hey, wait, take me with you! No, leave me alone! Let me go! Have you ever seen insects struggling...
A honey bee frantically struggles to escape from a reproductive chamber of a milkweed blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey
Right, left, up and down, the honey bee tries to free herself from the milkweed "floral trap." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This honey bee finally managed to free herself and then returned to forage for more nectar. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This honey bee couldn't free herself from the reproductive chamber of the milkweed. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey
Milkweed: A Honey Bee's Floral Trap
It is not a "pretty sight," as Ernest Hemingway might have said, to see a honey bee stuck like...
A honey bee stuck in milkweed pollinia. This plant is the narrowleaf milkweed,Asclepias fascicularis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A honey bee struggles to free herself from the sticky nectar trough of a milkweed plant, Asclepias fascicularis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Almost free! A honey bee works to free herself from the sticky nectar trough of a milkweed plant, Asclepias fascicularis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Death trap: This bee couldn't free herself from the sticky milkweed blossom of a Asclepias fascicularis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Status of diamondback moth population dynamics
Diamondback moth adults have been actively flying across the Salinas Valley these winter months, based on our area-wide monitoring program. There were a couple of locations where we recorded 'zero' captures during January. It looks like low temperatures in the Valley just slowed down this moth development. At this point, it will be difficult to propose that there was an overwintering generation this past winter. Specially in the Castroville area, where there has never been a 'zero' capture from our two traps. Having an overwintering generation would have represented 'zero' captures from all or most of our pheromone traps across the Valley.
We continue the effort to validate automated pheromone traps. In partnership with AgCeleration and TrapView, we are testing in the field a new prototype (Fig. 1). So far, there is no significant difference on the weekly captures between this new automated trap when compared to a typical cardboard pheromone trap. These automated traps provide real-time information on the number of diamondback moth males captured in a daily based. This type of information could ultimately help to understand the trends of the adults moving across the farmscape, strengthening an IPM program in cole crops.
Daily captures of diamondback moth male adults indicate that the highest populations are currently located in the Castroville area. On average, we have captured 12 males per day since February 11th (Fig. 2.). Most of the fluctuation on number of captured adults might have been mediated by air temperatures. The current trend shows that adult captures are going down. It is likely that large populations of this pest were able to go through a generation in the Castroville area using crop, weed host plants, and crop residues. It is important to recognize that:
1) Castroville area continues to be a hot spot with the largest diamondback moth population across the Salinas Valley.
2) Promptly scouting of blocks with cole crops will help to early detect the presence of economically relevant numbers of caterpillars.
3) Manage weeds, specially at the surrounding areas of established blocks, will reduce the overall population.
4) Promptly elimination of cole crop residues from previous plantings will reduce the overall population.
5) Rotate the use of insecticides will reduce the possibility to develop insecticide resistance.
6) Use of adjuvants/stickers will reduce the possibility of washing away any insecticide spray onto waxy cole crop leaves.
If you would like to learn more about the current status of diamondback moth in the Salinas Valley, please contact Alejandro Del-Pozo at adelpozo@ucanr.edu or call 831-759-7359.
Update on diamondback moth area-wide monitoring program
Last year, this pest was present in large numbers during August and September. The idea is to have additional data from the pheromone traps to inform the IPM decision making process. Below is a table showing the number of moths per day and per trap since February.
Table 1. Male diamondback moth captures by pheromone traps across the Salinas Valley. There are two type of traps deployed in the fields. We have the cardboard traps labeled as 'Regular' and also the automated traps labeled as 'Automated' and shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Automated trap (provided by AgCeleration and manufactured by TrapView) in a broccoli field. This type of trap has four cameras on top of the sticky liner. Cameras will take daily pictures. Pictures are analyzed to recognize the adult of diamondback moth. This trap uses a cellular connection to transmit the pictures daily to a centralized computer. The computer will use machine learning to recognize and count new moths getting stuck onto the liner.
To put these captures on a time perspective, the below time series graph shows the fluctuation of the diamondback moth captures since we set up the traps. The below graph does not include the data from the automated traps. Capture data is broken into a series labeled 'Castroville' (dotted line) indicating the moth captures from that specific location, and a second series labeled 'Other' (solid line) where the average captures among the other locations are presented.
If you are interested in learning more about this monitoring program, please contact Alejandro Del-Pozo at adelpozo@ucanr.edu or 831-759-7359.
Latest information on pest populations in vegetables
We are happy to announce that the diamondback moth capture data, presented as maps, is now housed in our own University of California Cooperative Extension Monterey website.
To access to these maps, simply click on the link below:
http://cemonterey.ucanr.edu/Agriculture/2019_Diamondback_moth_monitoring_maps/
These maps use the closest town or landmark where the traps are located to show moths per trap per day. Moth captures are presented as yellow bubbles. The bigger the bubble, the larger the population of moths is.
On the same page, you will also find the overall population fluctuations of these moths in the Valley, as a series chart.
We also stored the overall fluctuation of aphids and thrips numbers, captured in yellow sticky cards in our UCCE Monterey website. To access to these bar charts, click on the link below:
http://cemonterey.ucanr.edu/Agriculture/2019_Aphid_and_Thrips_Monitoring_Program/
If you would like to learn more about these three monitoring programs happening in the Salinas Valley, do not hesitate to contact Alejandro Del-Pozo at adelpozo@ucanr.edu or 831-759-7359.
Dimondback moth captures collected on 5-7-19