Miklos TOTH1, Lorenzo FURLAN2, Istvan SZARUKAN3,Venyamin G. YATSYNIN4, Istvan UJVARY1 and Zoltan IMREI1
1 Plant Protection Institute, Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest, Pf. 102, H-1525, Hungary
2 Institute for Agricultural Entomology, Padova University, Agripolis,, Via Romea 16, Legnaro, I-35020 Italy
3 Agricultural University, Debrecen, Pf. 58, H-4001,Hungary
4 Krasnodarskiy NIISKh im. P.P. Lukyanenko, Krasnodar12, Russia, 350012
In recent years we developed pheromone traps for catching males of several click beetle pests (Coleoptera, Elateridae). Traps and baits were optimized for populations occurring in Central and Western Europe, in tests conducted at several sites mainly in Italy and Hungary. for Agriotes ustulatus we established that none of the minor pheromone components described by authors for populations in Eastern Europe did influence catches of E,E farnesyl acetate, which proved to be sufficiently attractive on its own in both Italy and Hungary.
In A. sputator again minor and synergistic components described earlier by Russian authors did not prove to be biologically active in Hungary, where traps baited with geranyl butyrate on its own proved to be sufficiently active. Analysis of female pheromone gland extracts from beetles collected in Hungary was dominated by the presence of geranyl butyrate.
For A. lineatus, a farnesyl compound described earlier as a synergist for populations in the West Ukraine did not prove to be active in Central Europe. On the other hand the addition of small percentages of geranyl butyrate to geranyloctanoate (the main pheromone component) proved to be highly synergistic in all the areas tested. Interestingly presence of the butyrate at similar percentages was not observed in pheromone gland extracts.
For A. brevis the mixture of the two pheromone components geranyl butyrate and E,E farnesyl butyrate proved to be highly active in trapping trials in Italy. This is the first report on the pheromone composition of this species.
At present we are in the course of analyzing pheromone compositions and of optimizing trap/bait combinations for A. litigiosus, A. obscurus, A. rufipalpis and A. sordidus.