Collaboratrici e collaboratori

The two grapevine moths Lobesia botrana and Eupoecilia ambiguella are major viticultural pests, which are today controlled by mating disruption all over Europe. Until recently mating disruption relied on passive-release dispensers, deployed at high densities of 200 to 500 dispensers/ha. With the authorisation of active aerosol emitters more and more winegrowers switch to this less labour-intensive control method requiring only 2 to 5 emitters/ha. We were therefore interested to study if these new aerosol emitters provide a similar protection to vineyards than the original method for mating disruption. Since 2019, we find no evidence that the novel active-release emitters CheckMate® Puffer LB/EA are less effective than the classical passive-release dispensers of the type Isonet® or RAK®. Damages by grapevine moths remained for both types of pheromone emission stable and at a very low level. Infestation was also in both systems considerably lower than in the monitored references. Overall, our observations confirm that the deployment of less sex pheromone sources per area by the installation of active-release emitters does not reduce the efficacy of mating disruption at low pest population densities. It can therefore be an interesting alternative to conventional mating disruption.