

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

 .tural Marketing S« 

 Washington, Da C, 



Q ^ Agricultural Marketing Service 



APPARATUS FOR PIACBIG TEST LOTS OF INSECTS WITHIN PARCEIS^;^ 



STORED TOBACCO DURING FUI4IGATI0N EXFERII'ENTS 1/ V\^ \ BT?~A~B~~* 



By Wo D. Reed, E. M. Uvingstone, and A. Wc Morrill, Jr^' - '••'^l kecord 



'^ -'til 3 1955 . 



Intr oduct ion .. ' ■• ■ 'JL-R I'f / 



"W; uF/^GB/cmT](w< 



During the conduct of fumigation experiments regarding the control of 

 insects infesting cured tobacco, it became necessary to devise some method 

 of placing test lots of insects within hogsheads, cases, and bales of stored 

 tobacco in order to determine the percentage of mortality of such insects, 

 at specified depths, resulting from the fumigation treatments, A review of 

 the literature disclosed that various methods had been used by research 

 workers in similar lines of endeavor but that none of these methods were com- 

 pletely satisfactory. After considerable experimentation the steel spike 

 described in this circular was developed and has proved to be satisfactory 

 for the purpose intended. It is believed that this spike, or modifications 

 of it, could be used to advantage in obtaining data upon the percentage of 

 mortality resulting from fumigation, or other treatments, of many kinds of 

 insect-infested stored products, 



■. • "' ' 

 Description and Cost of Apparatus 



This spike (figure 1) consists of sections of stainless steel, each 

 three-fourths of an inch in outside diameter and 2\ inches in length, except 

 the top section, which is 3 inches long. When the sections are assembled 

 the total length of the spike is 1^ inches. The top end of each section is 

 cut down one-half inch to a diameter of three-eighths inch and threaded with 

 a. die. The bottom end of each section is drilled out to three-eighths inch 

 and the threads are cut to a distance of one-half inch in the opening. This 

 leaves a receptacle in each section 1 inch long and three-eighths inch in 

 diameter for accoiranodating the lots of insects ueed for tests. The upper 

 and lower sections of the spike contain no compartment for insects, but the 



1/ Formerly issued as ET-83, in May 1936 j by the former Bureau of 

 Entomology and Plant Quarantine; reissued, without change in text, by the 

 Biological Sciences Branch, Marketing Research Division, AI^B, in March 195^. 



Agriculture-Washington March 1955. 



A>lS-32 



