Spotted cutworm, Xestia c-nigrum (L.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) responses to sex pheromone and blacklight

The spotted cutworm, Xestia c-nigrum (L.), is highly polyphagous (Tietz 1972) and is a widespread pest of numerous crops in temperate regions of North America, Asia and Europe. It is noteworthy for its early spring damage to leaf and flower buds. The spotted cutworm is a significant pest of several crops in the Yakima Valley of eastern Washington state and causes occasional economic damage to vineyards, orchards and various row crops (Howell 1979). There is interest by growers in monitoring spotted cutworm moths for determining the need to look for larval damage to crops and for the purpose of timing pesticide applications. Howell (1979) used blacklight traps to define the seasonal pattern of spotted cutworm moth activity in the Yakima Valley of Washington. However, such traps are generally not used for agricultural pest monitoring because of purchase and maintenance costs and difficulties in sorting non-target insects that are captured. Moth sex pheromones are much more selective as attractants and can be relatively inexpensive and long lasting. A sex attractant pheromone can be used for trapping adult males of the spotted cutworm, but there may be taxonomic or geographic variance in the chemistry of the female sex pheromone and in the response of males to female pheromonal compounds. Roelofs and Comeau (1970) trapped Xestia (Amathes) c-nigrum (L.), probably in the state of New York, with both the Zand Eisomers of (7)-tetradecenyl acetate [(7)-14Ac], presented singly. They reported that a larger form of the moth was trapped with (Z7)-14Ac, while a smaller form of the moth was trapped with (E7)-tetradecenyl acetate [(E7)-14Ac].