Light Brown Apple Moth

Light Brown Apple Moth

Light Brown Apple Moth. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Dr. Helmuth Rogg, an entomologist with the Oregon Department of Agriculture has been trying to figure out how just one light brown apple moth made it’s way into a trap around Polk County Oregon.

ROGG: What may have happened is that one single specimen very likely as an adult hopped into the truck somewhere on the route up to Oregon. Because the shipment that we received in that particular nursery where we caught the light brown apple moth came from a county in California that is free of the light brown apple moth.

He believes that due to the small size of the nursery shipment that the delivery truck made other stops along the way.

ROGG: the other interpretation could be that it may have been a pupae or something like that that were hanging on one of these boxes and then hatched out once it got here. The shipment very likely arrived in late May or early June and that’s when we put out our traps.

Whatever the method of transportation one moth is not indicative of an infestation but according to Rogg they are concerned.

ROGG: There’s two consequences for that. First of all it shows how well our early detection system works. Secondly, well there’s a high pressure and we never said we will not get the light brown apple moth into Oregon, we always said it was a question of when we will get it because the quarantine system in California is not 100%.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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