Mating behaviors of Cydia pomonella (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) as influenced by sex pheromone in electrostatic powder.

Entostat is an electrostatically charged wax powder that can adhere strongly to insect cuticle, making it an ideal carrier to deliver pheromone for pheromone-based confusion techniques. We investigated the attractiveness of Cydia pomonella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) males treated with pheromone-laden Entostat powder to naive conspecifics as well as mating behaviors of males after such treatment in a laboratory flight tunnel. Male moths exposed to Entostat containing 1% E,E-8,10-dodecadien-1-ol (codlemone) acquired and retained the largest amount of the powder and became more attractive as point sources to naive moths compared with those treated with powder containing 5 or 10% codlemone. All Entostat-exposed males remained as attractive as a 0.1-mg codlemone lure for up to 24 h in flight tunnel investigations. Male moth orientation to normally attractive sources of codlemone was completely disrupted directly after treatment with Entostat powder. Males' ability to orient to 0.1-mg lures recovered progressively over a 6-d postexposure interval; however, their responses never reached the levels observed with untreated control moths. Entostat-exposed moths retained detectable amounts of codlemone up to 4 d. Our laboratory flight tunnel results suggest that the mode of action of Entostat powder as an autodissemination control tactic may be due to creating both attractive false point sources after exposure to the powder as well as directly inhibiting contaminated males' capability to orient to pheromone.