The concept has its roots in eradication of the screwworm fly, begun in the 1950's. Screwworm, a livestock pest, has been successfully eradicated from Florida, the Southwestern U.S. and most recently Mexico. Since then, ARS has tested areawide approaches for a number of pests. Spectacular success in tree fruit In 1995, an areawide program was initiated to control codling moth in tree fruit orchards in three western states. The program sought to replace high toxicity organophosphate pesticide sprays with pheromones and sterile males to disrupt mating.
Pheromones are the chemical attractants produced by female moths to draw in males.
In this case, synthetic pheromones were dispensed throughout the orchards, making it very difficult for males to find the real females. They still had to use cover sprays to knock the populations down so mating disruption would work. Once the codling moth populations were reduced, cover sprays were also reduced yielding an unexpected benefit. That saved a big cost they hadn't expected. The USDA's planned reduction in funding to the project occurred at the end of 1999, but the system continues in the private sector.