Earlier IPM studies have been on smaller plots. The project supports USDA's goal of helping producers apply IPM on 75 percent of U.S. crop acres by the year 2000. A blend of chemical scents and colors lures flies inside a plastic cylinder, where they die after gobbling up a mixture of methomyl insecticide and sugar. The chemical scents, ammonia and putrescine, mimic the smell of decaying fruit. The chemical blend can be fine-tuned to attract females before they mate and lay eggs inside fruit.
Current traps attract only males, or contain liquid bait that is easy to spill in the field.
ARS is seeking a patent on the new dry-bait trap, and several companies have expressed interest in developing it commercially. Adding tiny amounts of fungicide to the fungus Gliocladium virens could save this promising biocontrol agent from a harmful flaw when applied in cotton fields. ARS scientists discovered G. virens naturally produces antibiotics that help cotton seedlings fend off disease-causing soil microorganisms. But G. virens also naturally produces a steroid called viridiol that can harm cotton plant roots. Laboratory tests showed that treating G. virens with minuscule doses of fungicide stops the fungus' viridiol output without hindering its antibiotic production.