PHEROMONE ENHANCED BAITS FOR PEST ANT CONTROL: CURRENT STATUS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

Abstract:
The utility of pheromone enhanced ant baits was investigated using fire ants as the model organism. The enhanced bait consisted of hydramethylnon (active ingredient), soybean oil (phagostimulant and Ai solvent), defatted corn grit (carrier), and 'invictolide', a component of the fire ant queen recognition pheromone. The major hurdles that had to be overcome in this work were the many variables in the field that contributed to the high variance in bait efficacy, which makes detection of differences between standard and treatment difficult. Consideration of these variables was essential in this work. The enhanced bait was discovered almost twice as fast as standard bait particles. In addition, controlled field studies using single mound treatments demonstrated that besides being discovered faster, more active ingredient was getting to each target colony, because more bait particles were discovered. Thus, this work has demonstrated that pheromone enhanced ant baits offer several advantages over standard baits, especially the potential reduction of insecticide usage. Opposing these advantages are considerations for commercialization, among these are shelf life and the economics of the new pheromone enhanced formulation.