Integrated Pest Management Exam I

Two Requirements of Pest Monitoring

Monitoring Tool and Sampling Plan

Spatial Distribution Patterns and Examples

Aggregated (Nematode on Chives)

Random (Barely yellow dwarf virus)

Uniform (Rare in nature)

Three pest monitoring methods

Absolute Density: expressed as level per unit of crop or as a percentage of sampling units (visual count)

Relative Density: Estimated per unit of effort or time but not expressed with units of the crop area (visual searches)

Population Indices: Estimates of crop damage or the frequency of pest infestations which indirectly reflect the size of the population.

Sampling tools

Beat bucket, Beat cloth, Beat net, Plant cage, Berlise funnel, Sweep net, D-vac suction, trench, quadrat

Three sampling patterns

Random: Sampling at random points

Systematic: Sampling at regular intervals

Directed Systematic: Sampling at regular intervals focusing on hotspots

Sequential Sampling

Takes into account sampling efficiency. Minimum number of samples is taken and that is used to decide whether to treat, not treat, or take more samples.

Degree Day Models

Models that help predict the best timing for pest management decisions by predicting the life cycle of insects. Insect development is closely tied to temperature.

Biofix

The date that signals the start of growing Degree Day accumulations. (based on emergence of first adult moths for example)

EIL

Economic Injury Level: The lowest population density that will cause economic damage

ET

Economic Threshold: Pest population density at which pest control action should be taken in order to prevent an increasing pest population from reaching EIL. A measure of tolerable damage.

Sensory Ecology

How organisms (insects) process their environment around them

What kind of eyes do insects have

Compound Eyes characteristic of arthropods

Olfactory system primary organs

Antennae and specialized mouth parts

Two key sensory modalties used by insects to locate hosts and mates

Vision and Olfaction

Mating Disruption

Synthetic species-specific sex pheromones released to group large amounts of insects and suppress reproduction.

Mass trapping

Using plant volatiles or insect pheromones to attract large amounts of insects into traps.