Study Aims to Control Peach-Eating Weevils

TRAPPED—Traps baited with plum essence allow researchers to determine exactly when plum curculio populations peak.

The boll weevil may be gone, but a cousin called the plum curculio is still alive and well and enemy number one for Alabama’s $12-million peach industry.

The tree-fruit-crazed weevils damage peaches inside and out by feeding on blooms and new peaches, and, worse still, by laying eggs inside developing peaches—eggs that hatch into larvae that then eat their way out of the fruit.

To control the pests, producers must spray their crops with a pricey pesticide an
average of 12 times from mid-March through the end of June.

But in a study that began in 2006 at the AAES’s Chilton Research and Extension
Center, Auburn entomologist Henry Fadamiro and Ph.D. candidate Clement Akotsen-Mensah are developing a program in which growers, by using traps to monitor weevil populations, can manage plum curculios with just four properly timed sprayings.

They’re also testing new-generation pesticides that can be used at lower rates than existing products.

With fewer sprayings, growers will save money and environmental effects of chemicals will lessen.

from Impact, fall 2009