Background: Mating disruption (MD) is a worthwhile technique for the control of Lobesia botrana and Eupoecilia ambiguella in central Europe and Mediterranean areas. MD efficacy is affected by the pheromone release (PR), which in turn is influenced by environmental conditions.
Methods: The effect of weather conditions on PR was evaluated under four different fields in northern Italy. The PR of two commercial types of MD passive dispensers was correlated with different variables.
Results: For both dispensers, the temperature and vapor pressure deficit explained PR in vineyards with diverse weather conditions better than time. The effect of temperature was not linear, and any temperature increase at high temperatures accelerated the PRR more than proportionally. One dispenser type showed a non-linear release trend of the pheromone emission in field conditions with respect to the considered variables; further, the stepwise regression pointed out the importance of the dichotomous variable associated with the vineyard for increasing the goodness-of-fit.
Conclusions: The equations developed in this work are dispenser-dependent and can provide information on the PR during the season for each dispenser type, as influenced by weather conditions. These equations could serve as an input for a pheromone concentration model to predict concentrations based on meteorological conditions.
Keywords: Vitis vinifera; environmental conditions; integrated pest management; mathematical model; sex pheromones; tortricid moths.