Indian Journal of Entomology

For pheromone-based trapping in monitoring and/or mass trapping of the adult (moth) stage of the sugarcane early shoot borer (ESB) Chilo infuscatellus Snellen is done with conventional funnel trap and standard water basin trap (Delta trap). In this study an improved waterless pheromone trap (Delta Plus) has been compared in sugarcane fields at two locations. The same model with enlarged sticky gum arena, and the same design without access window, besides a smaller version of Delta Plus have also been included. The synthetic sex pheromone used was the C. infuscatellus ((Z)-11-Octadecen-1-ol). The results revealed the consistency and superiority of the Delta trap in terms of weekly catches. The advantage of additional access windows as an attribute in design improvement in the Delta Plus trap was also confirmed (12% incremental), and of the normal size of Delta trap over smaller size (32% incremental), amount of pheromone remaining same. The present pilot study thus confirms the potential of the newly developed waterless trap model (Delta Plus-patent filed) as it combines greater efficiency and being more user friendly than the water basin trap.