ABSTRACT
Pheromone-baited traps can be extremely helpful in pest management simply by making pest populations more visible. Insect populations have numerous regulating factors, and they characteristically fluctuate greatly in their densities. Monitoring with baited traps offers a further dimension, however, because the traps can also provide managers with quantitative information on the numerical trend in the population. Problems associated with population assessment by pheromone traps vary with the pest, although a major consideration for all trapping programs is trap saturation. Various types of polyethylene containers have been successfully used as dispensers for pheromones. Some stoppers are partially constructed of acetate plastic, which is soluble in certain pheromone chemicals, particularly some of the aromatic coleopteran compounds. Pheromone researchers and practitioners should encourage commercial production and application of monitoring systems for the general purpose of promoting the use of pheromones on an operational scale.
