Field Perimeter Trapping to Manage Rhagoletis mendax (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Wild Blueberry

Abstract

Rhagoletis mendax Curran (the blueberry maggot fly) is a major pest of wild blueberry. It is a direct pest of the fruit. Females lay eggs in fruit resulting in infestations of larvae unacceptable to most consumers. Three field perimeter interception tactics were tested for control of R. mendax in wild blueberry, Vaccinium angustifolium Aiton (Ericales: Ericaceae), between 2000 and 2010. We investigated field perimeter deployment of baited, insecticide-treated, green spheres (2000-2005), baited, yellow Trécé PHEROCON AM traps (2005 and 2006), and baited, Hopper Finder, sticky barrier tape (2008-2010). Only the Hopper Finder tape provided significant reduction in R. mendax adults and fruit infestation over the 3-yr field study. However, the reduction in fruit infestation compared with control plots was only 48.2 ± 7.3%, a level of reduction in damage that would be unsuitable for many commercial wild blueberry growers as a stand-alone tactic, but could be an important reduction as part of a multiple tactic IPM strategy. In addition, we constructed an agent-based computer simulation model to assess optimal trap placement between three patterns: 1) a single row of traps along field perimeter; 2) a double row of traps along the field perimeter at half the density of the single row; and 3) a grid of traps spread throughout the field but with the largest distance between traps. We found that the single row deployment pattern of traps was the best for reducing immigration of R. mendax adults into simulated fields.

Keywords: blueberry maggot fly; field edge; perimeter; sphere traps; yellow sticky tape.