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Attempts were made at applying green mirid pheromones in a sprayable formulation for mating disruption and attract-and-kill in 'Creontiades dilutus' (Stål), an emerging significant pest of cotton and other crops in Australia. In the mating disruption trials, a total trap shutdown for 2 days was observed. The short trap shutdown period is thought to have arisen from the formulation used. In the attract-and-kill work, efforts made to locate and count dead mirids for quantification did not work. Either the insecticide did not kill the mirids fast enough, resulting in their moving away from the treated row before dying, or the low numbers of mirids present made the sampling method ineffective. However, the trap results suggest that attract-and-kill for male green mirids remains a promising option. As with mating disruption, however, further work needs to be done on a long lasting formulation to overcome potential problems with reinvasion of treated fields. |
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