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Evaluation of Individual Components of Plum Odor As Potential Attractants for Adult Plum Curculios

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Abstract

We evaluated olfactory attraction of overwintered plum curculio (PC) adults, Conotrachelus nenuphar, to 16 individual volatile components of unripe plum odor in the laboratory using a still-air dual-choice bioassay system and in the field using baited cotton dental wicks attached to boll-weevil traps placed on the ground beneath the canopy of unsprayed apple trees. Two compounds, ethyl isovalerate and limonene, were significantly attractive in both laboratory bioassays and field experiments. In laboratory bioassays, as concentration was decreased across five orders of magnitude, a greater number of compounds elicited responses suggestive of attractancy (except at the lowest concentration). Even so, linalool, 2-hexanone, and 3-hydroxy-2-butanone were the only other compounds showing significant attractiveness in laboratory bioassays, but none of these (nor any other compounds) were significantly attractive in field assays. We suggest that the use of ethyl isovalerate and/or limonene as odor attractants offers potential to increase the efficacy of current traps for monitoring PCs immigrating into fruit orchards during spring.

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Author notes

  1. Tracy C. Leskey

    Present address: USDA, ARS, Appalachian Fruit Research Station, 45 Wiltshire Road, Kearneysville, West Virginia, 25430

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, 01003

    Tracy C. Leskey, Ronald J. Prokopy & Starker E. Wright

  2. Department of Entomology, OARDC, Wooster, Ohio, 44691

    P. Larry Phelan

  3. Department of Chemistry, The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, 44691

    Leroy W. Haynes

Authors
  1. Tracy C. Leskey
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  2. Ronald J. Prokopy
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  3. Starker E. Wright
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  4. P. Larry Phelan
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  5. Leroy W. Haynes
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Leskey, T.C., Prokopy, R.J., Wright, S.E. et al. Evaluation of Individual Components of Plum Odor As Potential Attractants for Adult Plum Curculios. J Chem Ecol 27, 1–17 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005667430877

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