Visual monitoring trap for tarnished plant bug adults on apple [Lygus lineolaris, Massachusetts]

Sticky-coated, non-ultraviolet-reflecting white traps (15 by 20 cm) hung from apple tree branches at ca. 70 cm above ground proved significantly more effective in detecting adult tarnished plant bugs (TPB), Lygus lineolaris (Palisot de Beauvois), than three other sampling methods: visual counts of adults on trees, limb jarring of adults onto a drop cloth, and net sweeps of ground cover vegetation. For 12 orchard situations in which no prebloom insecticide treatments were applied, there were significant positive linear relationships between levels of TPB-injured fruit at harvest and cumulative trap capture levels through the tight-cluster (r super(2) = 0.736) and late-pink (r super(2) = 0.526) stages of flower bud development. If the economic injury level for TPB is considered to be 2.0% fruit damage, then these findings suggest a tentative action threshold of cumulative capture of 3.0 adults per trap through tight cluster or 4.4 adults per trap through late pink.