Sticking with predators for pest management – Good Fruit Grower

—by Ross CourtneyJeff Heater, a G.S. Lengthy Co. crop guide, checks a helpful insect entice at a pear orchard in June close to Hood River, Oregon. Service firm representatives have begun utilizing the easy traps to assist Oregon State College entomologists measure predator populations and higher inform selections about spraying to manage psylla. (Ross Courtney/Good Fruit Grower)Researchers and consultants try to depend helpful bugs in and round pear orchards close to Hood River, Oregon, utilizing sticky card traps with lures, to tell built-in pest administration selections.Not that there’s a single appropriate strategy to scout for predators, however Jeff Heater prefers the traps, paired with 4 lures scented with plant volatiles, over the standard method of tapping on a department and shortly figuring out what drops onto a tray earlier than the bugs fly off.“Sticky playing cards are a lot quicker,” mentioned Heater, a G.S. Lengthy Co. crop guide.Heater has tried beat trays, however he gave up on them as a result of he didn’t assume he was discovering sufficient beneficials to take the time value it. Now, he simply adjustments the hanging traps as soon as per week throughout his rounds, and he likes the outcomes.Collectively, he and his counterparts at Wilbur-Ellis and Chamberlin Agriculture handle about 50 trapping websites all through the Hood River Valley. They depend lacewing, deraeocoris, trechnites and different predators and ship the info to Chris Adams, Oregon State College entomologist on the Mid-Columbia Agricultural Analysis and Extension Heart in Hood River. Heater makes his counts then delivers the playing cards to Adams, so he can supply one other set of eyes.The consultants use their site-specific counts to advise their shoppers, whereas Adams crunches the info and sends it out through his weekly entomology updates for the entire space.The aim is to ascertain formal thresholds for the helpful populations to assist inform spraying and different IPM selections.“It’s going to take years to determine all of it out,” Adams mentioned.Adams had been experimenting with the traps with companions in Washington below a three-year Washington Tree Fruit Analysis Fee grant. Throughout that mission, they discovered correlations between psylla and predator populations. Not surprisingly, after they had numerous predators on the traps, they measured much less psylla strain. Adams additionally discovered the traps tracked year-to-year cycles in psylla and pure enemy populations.The mission wrapped up with some leftover lures, so Adams issued them to the native consultants to maintain the info flowing. Adams has utilized for Western Sustainable Agriculture Analysis and Training funding to proceed the mission and supply these consultants some predator identification coaching.It’s not as if Adams hates beat trays, the scouting technique researchers and crop consultants in Washington are utilizing to trace helpful populations and make threshold-based administration selections. His workforce is utilizing them to contribute knowledge for Robert Orpet, a Washington State College collaborator additionally finding out helpful insect populations.Each strategies have benefits.The sticky playing cards skew towards grownup flying bugs drawn to the 4 plant volatiles. Deraeocoris, lacewings and yellow jackets are frequent catches. They’d fly away the second you whack a department for a beat tray pattern. And don’t fear: The playing cards dangle on just some pattern timber and received’t entice sufficient bugs to decrease the inhabitants and undo the advantage of beneficials, Adams mentioned.The traps don’t internet many earwigs or spiders, psylla predators that don’t fly or use plant volatiles to trace prey, Adams mentioned. Beat trays are higher for these.That’s why Chamberlin Agriculture employees are nonetheless utilizing each.“Is there a approach we might mix the 2 collectively?” mentioned Bruce Kiyokawa, a Chamberlin crop advisor.The strategy remains to be new, so thresholds aren’t but canonized. However the traps have knowledgeable selections whereas Adams builds his database, Kiyokawa mentioned.“It’s given us the boldness in some circumstances to say, ‘Let’s let it go one other week to see what occurs,’” he mentioned.In March, one in every of Heater’s traps caught 100 deraeocoris, prompting him to advise a grower to thoroughly skip early spring sprays. It turned out that the neighboring block had simply been sprayed with Encompass (kaolin). Heater speculates that pushed the predators into his block. Later, within the warmth of summer time, the identical entice additionally caught excessive counts of yellow jackets and bald-faced hornets. The orchard nearly by no means has psylla strain; Heater figures the predator inhabitants is why.That revelation made him enthusiastic about Adams’ sticky card concept. He had been skeptical up till that time.“That’s in all probability the one instance that prompted me to get passionate about this mission,” he mentioned. •



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