Abstract:
Tea aphids cause serious yield loss and quality deterioration on the famed local teas. They have become one of the major pests for the plantations in the tea trees growing area. The winged male and wingless female aphids generally emerge to mate in autumn when the day length begins to shorten. They lay eggs to be hatched after the winter. To curtail the population proliferation, the present study used the sticky boards containing sex pheromone, botanic attractant and/or being colored differently with the rapeseed flower yellow, bud green or jasmine yellow to trap the male aphids in the late season. The results showed that ① the pheromones were very significantly the most attractive to the insects, and the colors the least, among the three categories; ② among the three sex pheromones, the blend of(4
aS, 7
S, 7
aR)-nepetalactone and(1
R, 4
aS, 7
S, 7
aR)-nepetalactol at the ratio of 1:9 exerted the best effect; ③ the blend of
E-2-hexenal, n-pentanol, 2-penten-1-ol, n-hexanol,
Z-3-hexen-1-ol and
Z1:1:1:1:5:25 was the best among the botanic attractants tested; ④ the boards of different colors differed in their abilities to attract the aphids as well – the rapeseed flower yellow appeared to be better than the other two. Therefore, in combination, the rapeseed flower yellow sticky boards coated with nepetalactone and nepetalactol at ratio of 1:1 was recommended for the pest control in order to reduce the aphid population in the spring and summer that follow the trapping.-3-hexenyl acetate at the ratio of