An alluring six-headed hydra

摘要

Luring insect pests from a cash crop such as apples, and keeping them away, is the goal of every attract-and-kill pest management system. Ideally, the system would lure multiple pests simultaneously, would do so every year in a simple and inexpensivemanner and would improve pest monitoring.Jaime Pinero, a professor and entomologist with the University of Massachusetts Amherst and leader of the UMass Extension Fruit Program, devised an intriguing pest attraction method that might fit that ideal: Graft multiple cultivars known to be attractive to insect pests onto a handful of apple trees on the orchard perimeter, and use them as perennial trap trees.