Relationship of navel orangeworm moths to hard shell and soft shell almonds

THERE ARE SEVERAL severe bottle-necks in the search for agricultural chemicals (toxicants, sterilants or repellents) to control navel orangeworm infestations in almond orchards. One is that the use of experimental or unregistered pesticides jeopardizes the sale of crops from test plots. Another concerns the scarcity of knowledge about the flights of moths within or between orchards and within entire communities. The tools to do this kind of assessment work are still crude and the manpower requirement is high. Individuals and various small research teams working in California have accumulated a large amount of information about this tenacious pest, but an economic control method for orchard infestations has not yet been determined.