Abstract
The effect of exposing apples to brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys, for discrete intervals before harvest and of post-harvest cold storage on feeding injury expression was evaluated in 2011 and 2012. Individual apples from four cultivars in experimental orchards in Virginia and West Virginia, USA were caged soon after fruit set to protect them from insect injury. During each of the four weeks preceding harvest of each cultivar, five adult H. halys were placed in a subset of cages for 7-days, then removed. Control fruit were not exposed. The proportion of injured fruit and the number of external injuries was evaluated at harvest, after which the fruit were held in cold storage for about 5 weeks, followed by assessments of the proportion of fruit injured and the number of external and internal injuries. Most exposure timings resulted in external injury at harvest, but fruit exposed closer to harvest tended to show less injury than those exposed earlier. Fruit from all cultivars showed external injury at harvest, with variation in the proportion of injured fruit among them. The proportion of injured fruit and the number of external injuries tended to increase during post-harvest cold storage in some, but not all cultivars. The number of external injuries at harvest and after cold storage underrepresented the number of internal injuries. Results are discussed in the relation to the length of pre-harvest protection required to mitigate fruit injury from H. halys.
Highlights
The invasive brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys (Stål) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), has impacted tree fruit production in several Mid-Atlantic States in the USA since its initial outbreak in 2010 (Leskey et al, 2012a)
Using exclusion cages to selectively expose apple and peach fruit to natural H. halys populations in Virginia for discrete intervals during two growing seasons, Joseph et al (2015) showed that some apples exposed in May expressed injury at harvest, but that most injury was incurred during exposures in July, August, and September
Control apples that were not exposed to H. halys showed no external injury at harvest or external or internal injury after cold storage (Table 2), confirming that the cages prevented insect injury prior to or during the experiment, as they did in previous experiments (Joseph et al, 2015; Acebes-Doria et al, 2016)
Summary
The invasive brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys (Stål) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), has impacted tree fruit production in several Mid-Atlantic States in the USA since its initial outbreak in 2010 (Leskey et al, 2012a). Injury to apples from feeding by the brown stink bug, Euschistus servus (Say) (Leskey et al, 2009; Brown and Short, 2010) and H. halys (Joseph et al, 2015; Acebes-Doria et al, 2016) is first manifest as a tiny discolored dot at the stylet insertion point, which may be undetectable to the untrained eye or without magnification and which is not considered economic injury per se These injuries can progress into de fects that can cause economic losses and that are much more apparent, including shallow, often discolored depressions or deformations on the fruit surface and, in the flesh, discrete areas of brown necrosis that tend to be associated with external injuries. Using exclusion cages to selectively expose apple and peach fruit to natural H. halys populations in Virginia for discrete intervals during two growing seasons, Joseph et al (2015) showed that some apples exposed in May expressed injury at harvest, but that most injury was incurred during exposures in July, August, and September
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