This summer I have an internship with Crop Production Services. My role for CPS is to check traps on roughly 50 farms in the area and look for some key insects that can be really detrimental to the crop. All of the pests I look for are categorized as internal worms. They are Coddling Moth, Oriental Fruit Month, Lesser Apple Worm and Oblate Banded Leafroller. I took some pictures of how I trap them and what some of the pest looks like.

This picture shows a couple good things that demonstrate exactly what I do. In the center of the picture there are two insects and a red cap. This upper insect is  just a fly but I included it in the photo to give a reference for size. Another size reference is the green squares. Each square is 1.5 in X 1.5 in. The bottom insect is the Oriental Fruit Moth. This moth is a dark brown/grey with a darker grey diamond on their back. I see these moths in almost every trap I check, however, they are not a problem to the farmer till they exceed the threshold level. The threshold level varies for each insect and the OFM threshold limit is thirty. I check half the traps every Wednesday and the other half every Friday. This keeps the time interval in between checks the same every week. The past two weeks the counts have been really low because they are in between cycles. The second generation of these moths should take flight in about two weeks from now. When that happens I will upload a picture with a really high pest pressure. The last object in this picture is the pheromone caps. These caps are roughly 1 in long and are infused with a sex pheromone that attracts the OFM towards the traps.These caps are good for about two months of trapping then need to be changed to ensure accurate counts. Once the moth is inside the trap it doesn’t leave because the entire inside of the trap is encased with a sticky goo called tangle foot. This is the worst part of my job. This goo gets on your hands and then gets on everything you touch.  Next week I will take photos of the Coddling Moth and discuss some ways farmers keep pest pressure low after I give them their trap counts.

This picture shows the trap from the outside. The traps are made by a company called Trece and have the tangle foot goo on all three sides of the trap.