Evaluation of Male-Baited Traps for Control of Boll Weevils Following a Reproduction-Diapause Program in Monroe County, Mississippi1234

Abstract

In the spring of 1969, male-baited traps for Anthonomus grandis Boheman were placed around ca. 4000 acres of cotton in a large-scale field test in Monroe County, after completion of a voluntary grower-sponsored reproduction-diapause control program the fall of 1968. The few fields that had not been treated produced a population of weevils which varied from field to field. Where over wintered boll weevils numbered less than 5 per acre, the trap efficiency was estimated to be 93%, but it dropped to 21% when the populations averaged about 300 weevils/acre. Differences in the number of over wintered boll weevils collected per trap were not significant when 1, 2, 4, and 8 traps per acre were compared. However, significantly more over wintered boll weevils were found in the fields with 8 traps per acre than in fields with 2 traps per acre. Inter field movement of over wintered weevils from the fields that had not been treated appeared to be restricted to those fields that shared over wintering sites with the untreated fields. Some fields were treated with insecticides in July for control of 1st-generation boll weevils, but many fields did not require treatment until early August.