Trap Crop Effectiveness in Community Boll Weevil (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Control Programs²

Trap crops, along with delayed uniform planting and pinhead square treatments, greatly reduced spring populations of overwintered boll weevils, Anthonomus grandis Boheman, in a Laveen, AZ community-wide IPM program in 1987. Thirty four trap crops, planted fifteen days ahead of the regular crop, had as many as 39536 damaged plants/ha before insecticide treatments were initiated. Five insecticide applications at 3-day intervals beginning at square initiation were used to destroy weevils before the trap crops were plowed under at the time pinhead square treatments were initiated in regular planted fields. Damaged square infestations were 2 to 11 times lower throughout the season in 1987 compared to 1986 while average lint yields per ha increased from a low of 942 kg in 1985 to 1345 kg in 1986 and 1506 kg in 1987.