This discovery could lead to a lure that would, in essence, bait the beetle into a trap. Lab tests were promising, and we began field tests in China late last week. To create the lure, the USDA scientists first isolated two chemicals produced by male beetles. They then made artificial copies that appear to be potent attractants for both sexes. During promising lab tests, the two synthetic pheromones were the only substances, from either plants or insects, that interested the beetles enough to encourage them to fly toward the source in a wind tunnel.
Field tests are under way in China.
If the attractant is effective and works at appropriate distances, baited traps can be used in the United States to help flush out undetected beetle infestations and monitor high-risk areas, such as import warehouses and ports, to head off arriving beetles. It can't be controlled with pesticides and has no natural predators in the United States, where it's thought to have arrived some years ago inside wooden packing crates from China. So far, thousands of trees have been cut down in suburban Chicago, New York City, and Long Island to prevent the beetle's spread. Last December, the Department of Agriculture began requiring that all solid wood packaging materials from China be treated for pests before arrival in the United States. That prompted a complaint from the Chinese government of unfair trade practices.