Male Boll Weevils are More Attractive than Cotton Plants to Boll Weevils123

The definite preference of over wintered and late-season Anthonomus grandis Boheman for male weevils compared with that for fruiting cotton suggests that the pest may be less attracted to weevil-free cotton than to cotton containing male weevils that have found the plant by random flight or because of a short-range response to a plant attractant. Traps baited with live male weevils or with a synthetic male pheromone may thus prove a possible new method of control and/or eradication of boll weevils and a valuable method of making surveys to detect small, incipient populations of boll weevils formerly not easily surveyed.