A. ESTER, K. van ROZEN
Applied Plant Research (PPO), P.O. Box 430, 8200 AK, Lelystad, The Netherlands
F. GRIEPINK
Plant Research International (PRI), P.O. Box 16, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Wireworms are  the main soil pest in many arable and vegetable crops. Current chemical protection is primarily based on soil treatment with chlorpyrifos and ethoprophos, which are in general discussed as environmentally usable products. This type of soil protection depends on presence or absence of wireworms by baiting, a hardly accurate and very laborious method. PPO is developing a new strategy to control wireworms by monitoring the adult clickbeetles. The clickbeetles were trapped by pitfalls covered by a lid added with pheromone dispensers. The main components of species dependent sexpheromones were used to monitor five Agriotes spp. in different vegetations. A. lineatus, A. obscurus and A. sputator were highly present, whereas no A. brevis and A. ustulatus were caught.  A. sputator were most caught in the verge, only a few number were found in fields for arable production. A. lineatus and A. obscurus were common in grass seed, barley and the verge. All three species were caught in potato fields but in much smaller numbers. The component mixture of 95 % geranyl octanoate and 5 % geranyl butanoate attracted nearly 100 % A. lineatus. The mixtures used to attract A. obscurus (50 % geranyl octanoate and 50 % geranyl hexanoaat) and A. sputator (80 % geranyl butanoate and 20 % farnesyl hexanoate) were rather species specific. Possibilities of practical implementation in integrated farming of sex-pheromones as a supervised control system in crop protection are discussed.