The Characteristics and Optimal Implementation of Mating Disruption in Managing Pest Insect Population

Abstract

Conventional pesticide application is the most common method in dealing with pests. However, the application of conventional pesticide has a considerable drawback to the environment and the agricultural sector in the long run. Therefore, a more environmentally friendly pest control method is needed. Mating disruption is one of the alternative methods available. This paper discusses the characteristics and the optimal implementation of a mating disruption using optimal control approach. A generic insect life cycle model is examined and modified to add mating disruption as a dynamic control method. 4th order Runge-Kutta method and forward-backwards sweep method was used to numerically solve the control problem. An illustrative comparison between the implementation of constant control and dynamic control was also given for a variety of scenarios. From the simulations, it was found that mating disruption generates a large amount of benefit when it is fully effective. When it has imperfect effectiveness in disrupting the mating process, mating disruption will generate significantly less benefit. The optimal control approach reduces the application cost significantly while still preserving the benefit.