Evaluation of thermal, pneumatic and biological methods for controlling Colorado potato beetles (Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say)

Summary The efficacies of four methods (hot water steam (HS), open flame (OF), pneumatic collector (PC), bio-insecticide NOVODOR (BT)) for controlling Colorado potato beetles (CPB) in potatoes were compared under field conditions. HS, OF and PC were tested at various driving speeds, and all methods were tested on CPB that were at three life stages. The results suggest that the best time to control CPB is at L_1–2 stage using BT (86% effectiveness). When averaged across driving speeds, OF performed better than HS and PC with 56% efficacy on L_1–2, and 45–50% on L_3–4 and Adult life stages. PC worked relatively better on L_3–4 than on L_1–2 and Adult life stages. HS gave excellent efficacy (63% on L_1–2, 52–54% on L_3–4 and Adult) at 1.0 km/h speed. This research demonstrated the potential of alternative CPB control methods, and identified the optimum life stage and driving speed for best results.