Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Agronomic: sugarcane
- Fruits: bananas
- Vegetables: sweet potatoes
- Additional Plants: ornamentals, trees
Practices
- Animal Production: preventive practices
- Crop Production: food product quality/safety
- Farm Business Management: farm-to-institution
- Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, wildlife
- Pest Management: biorational pesticides, integrated pest management, mating disruption, prevention, traps
- Production Systems: holistic management
- Sustainable Communities: public participation, urban agriculture, sustainability measures
Proposal abstract:
Ecological pest management through semiochemicals is an area of agricultural production in which Guam’s agriculture professionals need addition training. The purpose of this project is to build agriculture professionals’ understanding of the role of semiochemicals in pest control and eradication programs. There is a lack of local knowledge about the role of semiochemicals in pest management. The training will cover the relationship between semiochemical-based trapping methods and overall crop production on Guam for four important weevil pests. Objective 1 Course Development: over the course of 18 months semiochemical-based trapping methods will be implanted for the control of the banana weevil Cosmopolites sordidus, the New Guinea sugarcane weevil, Rhabdoscelus obscurus, two sweet potato weevils, Cylas formicarius and West Indian sweet potato weevil Euscepes postfasciatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae. Photos of trapping systems, pest damage symptoms as well as trapping date will be collected and developed into an instruction manual: Semiochemical-based trapping method for weevil pests on Guam. Objective 2 Instruction: for four months 10 agriculture professionals using material developed in phase one of the projects will be instructed on the trapping method including the importance of lures and trap characteristics and diagnosis of pest problems. Various traps, lures and trapping methods will be used.Objective 3 Field day and Evaluation: Agriculture professional trainees will host a field day for growers and the general public. Two months after the field day the agriculture professionals will meet and provide feed-back on the effectiveness of the project and to evaluate long term gains in their knowledge of semiochemical-based trapping methods.
Project objectives from proposal:
Objective 1 Course Development: over the course of 18 months semiochemical-based trapping methods will be implanted for the control of the banana weevil Cosmopolites sordidus, the New Guinea sugarcane weevil, Rhabdoscelus obscurus, two sweet potato weevils, Cylas formicarius and West Indian sweet potato weevil Euscepes postfasciatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae. Photos of trapping systems, pest damage symptoms as well as trapping date will be collected and developed into an instruction manual: Semiochemical-based trapping method for weevil pests on Guam.
Objective 2 Instruction: for four months 10 agriculture professionals using material developed in phase one of the projects will be instructed on the trapping method including the importance of lures and trap characteristics and diagnosis of pest problems. Various traps, lures and trapping methods will be used.
Objective 3 Field day and Evaluation: Agriculture professional trainees will host a field day for growers and the general public. Two months after the field day the agriculture professionals will meet and provide feed-back on the effectiveness of the project and to evaluate long term gains in their knowledge of semiochemical-based trapping methods.