Codling moth responses to its sex pheromone in the lab and field and what It means to the efficacy of codling moth mating disruption

Pre-exposing male codling moths, Cydia pomonella to female sex pheromone in the lab and field impacted antennal sensitivity, behavioural responsiveness, and attraction. In wind tunnel experiments, the upwind flight to pheromone sources known to elicit responses were shown to depend on the intensity and duration of previous exposure to its pheromone codlemone and the recovery time between exposure and assessment. However, 30 hours of exposure of caged moths to air in an orchard treated with 1,000 mating disruption dispensers per acre had no impact on moth response in flight-tunnel assays 30 min after removal from the orchard. Given these results, it seems unlikely that the main mechanisms of codling moth mating disruption (CM MD) are antennal adaptation or habituation. For these mechansims to be important, codling moths may require close contact with pheromone dispensers for extended periods, or after repeated close encounters. These results support the hypothesis that the main mechanisms of CM MD is false trail following or competitive attraction.