“Advances in Behavior-Based Tactics for Management of Spotted-Wing Drosophila” — watch this one-hour 2022 SCRI NIFA Spotted-Wing Drosophila Management Team Webinar which aired on Thursday, December 8th, 2022 at 12:00pm EST and learn. Watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPkQhWafZbk
What are behavior-based tactics, you ask? Well this is when entomologists figure out what control tactics can be used against an insect pest, based on how it lives. Think about mating disruption, used against oriental fruit moth, to prevent the male moths from mating with the female moths by flooding the orchard with volatile sex pheromones. With SWD, there may be ways to use feeding attractants, called kairomones, to attract the insects away from the fruit and then kill them. This is an attract-and-kill tactic.
Other insect behaviors being investigated include visual cues the insects use — thus we now have red traps for monitoring when SWD arrives. Attend and learn about the promising and affordable behavioral control tactics this team of talented entomologists is developing against SWD.
There is be a brief update on biological control. There are many tiny wasps that like to lay eggs in SWD, some native and some, which are more selective towards SWD, from Asia. Members of this team now have over ten years of work on these foreign natural enemies and they are on the cusp of being able to release these against SWD.
To watch this webinar on behavior-based SWD management, please follow this link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPkQhWafZbk
From the Sustainable Spotted Wing Drosophila Management team, swdmanagement.org/