In the News April 19, 2007 Vine mealybug life stage influences
response to insecticides Scientists are testing different
populations of vine mealybug from the Coachella and San Joaquin
valleys for their susceptibility to the five most common
pesticides used in the past few years to control them. With
funding from the UC Exotic/Invasive Pests and Diseases Research
Program, Carmen Gispert, University of California (UC)
Cooperative Extension, Riverside, and Nilima Prabhaker,
Entomology, UC Riverside, tested the mealybugs’ reactions to
chlorpyrifos, dimethoate, methomyl, buprofezin, and imidacloprid
and found different responses between populations of the pest to
some of these insecticides. In laboratory experiments, vine
mealybug populations from Coachella and San Joaquin valleys are
most sensitive to chlorpyrifos based on the lethal concentration
that kills 50 percent of the population, followed by buprofezin.
Buprofezin was the most effective against the immature stages of
vine mealybug due to its ability to i