Mating Disruption - Disadvantages of Mating Disruption

Disadvantages of Mating Disruption

Over the decades that pheromone pest programs have been used several disadvantages have been argued when compared to the use of conventional pesticides. Specifically, certain synthetic pheromones have high developmental and production costs, resulting in mating disruption being too costly for controlling pest infestations in certain situations. Most pheromone mating disruption formulations are applied by hand, which can be an expensive and time consuming technique. Novel pheromone formulations being developed have shown the possibility of providing long lasting effects (e.g., depending on the target pest a single application of SPLAT controls the target pest for a complete reproductive cycle, or for the entire season) and can be mechanically applied, but dispersal techniques require specialized application technology and/or equipment. In some instances, especially for small growers, this may lower cost effectiveness of the treatment.

Regulatory agencies in the US rely on animal testing to determine toxicity levels and chronic health effects of pheromones and other pesticides. Recently concerned citizens from the Monterey bay area and near by vicinities in California were worried by local government plans to aerially spray pheromone formulations in nearby rural and urban areas, to control the Light Brown Apple Moth. Citizens demanded that US government regulatory agencies needed to measure the long term human health effects of pheromone programs before dispersing a mating disruption program over a highly populated area. It is immoral and possibly against the law to expose humans to determine long term human health effects of any substance, including pheromones: that is why EPA relies on animal testing instead of human testing, to determine long term effects of chemical exposure. Animal testing in the past three decades has shown no long term harmful effects of insect sex pheromone exposure to mammals. However, due to the absence of long-term human health studies, concerned citizens from the Bay Area in California vehemently objected to the use of synthetic sex pheromones to suppress the Light Brown Apple Moth. This caused an impasse, eradication efforts ceased, and now the Light Brown Apple Moth has established in California.