WSiST SERVICE RESEARCH NOTE NE-284 



<ty-*^ 1979 



^grtheastern Torest 

 Txperiment Statloii 



FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 370 REED ROAD, BROOMALL, PA. 19008 



O 



PRELIMINARY TEST OF BOOBY-TRAPPING 

 | FOR CONTROL OF TWO CERAMBYCIDS 



X I — CD 



§ — JIMMY R. GALFORD 



"T Research Entomologist 



eg Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, 



Tt Delaware, Ohio 



i— I 



O Abstract. Small aluminum "boats" containing cotton saturated with 



q lindane were glued to elytra of female red oak borers and locust 



borers and the beetles released into cages or onto trees. Males at- 

 tempting to mate with booby-trapped females contacted the insecti- 

 cide and died. However, females also became contaminated in mat- 

 ing attempts and soon died. 



Keywords: red oak borer, locust borer, insecticide 



INTRODUCTION 



The idea of using "booby-trapping" for in- 

 sect control was proposed by Smith (1963), 

 Whitten and Norris (1967), and Morgan 

 (1967). Masner et al. (1968) proposed a sim- 

 ilar technique. The idea of booby-trapping is 

 to release females or males that carry insecti- 

 cide or chemosterilant and thus kill or steril- 

 ize potential mates of the released insects. 



For insecticide treatment, it is necessary to 

 have an insecticide-resistant strain of insects 

 so that the treatment does not kill those 

 carrying the booby-traps. Developing resistant 

 strains can usually be accomplished within a 

 few generations; however, the task is time 



consuming with insects that have long life 

 cycles. 



The red oak borer, Enaphalodes rufulus 

 (Haldeman) and locust borer Megacyllene 

 robiniae (Forster), both primary borers, have 

 long life cycles. The red oak borer has a 2- 

 year life cycle with an economically important 

 generation only in odd years throughout most 

 of the beetles' range (Hay 1974). The locust 

 borer has a 1-year life cycle. While both of 

 these species can be reared artificially, a gen- 

 eration requires 7 to 8 months for the red oak 

 borer (Galford 1974) and about 3 months for 

 the locust borer (Wollerman 1969). 



However, both cerambycids have potential 

 for control by booby-trapping, because peak 



1 



