1st Place: Deployment of insecticide-treated netting to improve fumigation efficacy in bulk storage at food facilities

Insecticide-treated netting has successfully been used to impair mobility and prevent infestation by stored product beetles after harvest. Understanding how to integrate insecticide-treated netting with existing IPM tactics at food facilities can improve protection of commodities while increasing sustainability. One key tactic used at food facilities is phosphine fumigation. In this experiment, we used 3-MT grain bins, and in each, 60 perforated buckets were filled with 500 g of uninfested wheat. Buckets were protected by insecticide-treated netting (with 0.3% α-cypermethrin, BASF), control netting (untreated with insecticide), or no netting (negative control). Half of each treatment was randomly assigned to a fumigation treatment, while the remainder were not fumigated. Monthly samples of 100 g of grain from four buckets from each control or treatment were taken and coincided with additional releases of insects to supplement natural populations. Insect life stages were sieved and recorded, while grain quality measures were evaluated. Based on the Federal Grain Inspection Service defect guidelines, if the threshold was met in any bucket during the month, fumigation was triggered for those assigned to that treatment. We recorded and compared the length of protection by each fumigation, as well as the number of fumigations that are required by treatments with and without netting. Overall, we found that buckets with insecticide-treated netting had less insect infestation and required fewer fumigations compared to the negative control. Our results demonstrate that insecticide-treated netting can be used for effective IPM programs to enhance the efficacy of existing tactics such as phosphine fumigation.