Effects of Trap, and Ethanol Lure Type and Age on Attraction of Ambrosia Beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

Ambrosia beetles (Xylosandrus spp.) are pests of woody ornamental nurseries and tree nut orchards. Growers use ethanol-infused bolts and ethanol-mediated bottle traps for monitoring ambrosia beetles in the spring. To refine these monitoring tools, we investigated the 1) sensitivity of the commercially available ethanol pouches placed on bolts compared with that of ethanol-infused bolts for ambrosia beetle attacks; and 2) the effect of aging of ethanol pouches on ambrosia beetle captures in bottle traps. Experiments were conducted in ornamental nurseries and pecan orchards in 2019 and 2020. For objective 1, the treatments included a bolt infused with locally purchased ethanol, an ethanol pouch attached to a bolt, and a control (bolt without ethanol). For objective 2, ethanol pouches were initially field-aged for 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 wk and ambrosia beetle captures were documented weekly for 4 wk. Ethanol pouches older than 5 wk were replaced with fresh pouches at the pecan sites while ethanol pouches at nursery sites were aged up to 8 wk. The ethanol-pouch comparison study showed that the number of ambrosia beetle attacks was significantly greater on ethanol-infused bolt traps than with the ethanol pouches on bolts at the nursery and pecan sites in both years. The age of the ethanol pouches did not affect captures of Xylosandrus crassiusculus (Motschulsky) and X. germanus (Blandford) in bottle traps within 8 wk of deployment. Results provide practical implications into the sensitivity of the different ethanol lure types in association with bolt traps and the longevity of the ethanol pouches for grower use.

Automated summary

The study investigated the sensitivity of ethanol-infused bolts compared to ethanol pouches for monitoring ambrosia beetles, as well as the effect of aging ethanol pouches on beetle captures in bottle traps. Results showed that ethanol-infused bolts were more effective than ethanol pouches in capturing ambrosia beetles in both ornamental nurseries and pecan orchards. The aging of ethanol pouches did not significantly affect beetle captures in bottle traps within the study period.