LEVERAGING PEST BEHAVIOR FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF BIOLOGICAL CONTROL FOR PLUM CURCULIO

This ARDP research-led project will develop integrated IPM strategies and deliver extension materials to enhance the sustainability of eastern and southeastern fruit production and meets ARDP program priorities. Plum curculio (PC), is a keystone pest and consistently ranks as a top concern in apples, peaches, and blueberries. PC adults and larvae cause significant feeding damage and contamination of fruit at harvest. The adoption of additional IPM strategies has been largely absent thus, management relies heavily on repeated applications of insecticides, occasionally guided by a degree-day model. PC has demonstrated a strong edge effect in Canadian apples and we hypothesize that dispersal behavioral and subsequent spatial distribution of larvae are conserved among agroecosystems and regions and provides an opportunity for management. We will systematically evaluate the distribution of PC within apple, peach, and blueberry and develop integrated management strategies against multiple life stages to a spatially refined area using border sprays to target immigrating adults and biological control of larvae using entomopathogens (EPNs). Both tactics will spatially refine application areas and will reduce costs by over 25% - addressing a key barrier to adoption. We expect that integrating these tactics will reduce the amount and number of insecticide applications needed. The impact on successive generations of the developed IPM tactics will be estimated by incorporating stage-specific mortality into aLeftkovichmatrix model. Finally, we will demonstrate the addition of spatially refined tactics on apple, peach, and blueberry farms in multiple states and disseminate management recommendations through videos and MyIPM app.