Abstract
Southern rootworm (Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi) affects several plants such as soybean, sorghum, wheat, cucumber, alfalfa, cucurbits and it is most damaging to corn and peanuts. The pheromone based “attract and kill” strategy is one of the powerful ways to control pest population. To address our key objective of the practical utility of the synthetic pheromone, we have developed a simple synthetic strategy to produce gram scale southern corn rootworm pheromone in nine simple steps starting from S-Citronellol. The present strategy takes advantage of the existing chiral center of commercially available S-Citronellol. To get the basic carbon skeleton of the pheromone, the main step in the synthetic strategy is coupling of aliphatic units through Wittig reaction. The phosphonium salt from a non-functionalized aliphatic bromide followed by Wittig reaction improved the overall yield in the multistep synthesis of this pheromone. The large-scale production of pheromone enabled us to test it in the field.
Highlights
The southern corn rootworm (SCR), the larvae of spotted cucumber beetle, has devastating impact on several grass crops mainly corn and peanuts in southern states
To address our key objective of the practical utility of the synthetic pheromone, we have developed a simple synthetic strategy to produce gram scale southern corn rootworm pheromone in nine simple steps starting from S-Citronellol
We are reporting an improved method for the large-scale synthesis of SCR pheromone for field trials
Summary
The southern corn rootworm (SCR), the larvae of spotted cucumber beetle, has devastating impact on several grass crops mainly corn and peanuts in southern states. Synthetic insect sex pheromones play important roles in managing pest control through “attract and kill” strategy [4]. In this short communication, we are reporting an improved method for the large-scale synthesis of SCR pheromone for field trials. To illustrate with an example, we are reporting preliminary field study results conducted at the Beltsville Agriculture Research Center, Beltsville, MD. The structure of this female-produced pheromone was identified by Tumlinson et al as R-isomer of 10-methyl-2-tridecanone [5]. This is the first report for the enantiomerically pure synthetic pheromone being evaluated in the field
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