Todd, You bring up some very good points. The distance a particular lure will attract an insect is based on insect biology (how much it is motivated by a sex pheromone), insect mobility (whether it can fly), and where the pheromone ends up. The pheromone scent coming off of the lures is naked to the eye, but is similar in physical characteristics to smoke coming off of a campfire. Those that have sat downwind of a campfire have the red eyes to attest that all of the smoke went in their direction.
If you hang a pheromone trap directly in front of a return air duct, nearly all of the pheromone will be pulled into the air handling system and will not draw in insects from the room. Along those same lines, a trap placed into the center of a room with a constant and predominate air flow in one direction will not draw in insects at all from an upwind direction but may draw in insects from twice as far as the recommended placement from the downwind direction. All of these things need to be taken into account when setting up a pheromone monitoring program. A simple wet finger test may give you enough info in this respect or other more scientific means can be implemented to determine air flow and velocity. Thanks for bringing up this important factor in a monitoring program. Pat ________________________________ From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Todd Holmberg <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, November 7, 2018 11:29:14 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [pestlist] Pheromone Lures Hey Everyone, I have been wondering about something for a while, and figured I'd shoot out an email to the list and see if anyone has any opinions about it one way or the other. Basically, the question has to do with a pheromone lures ability to "fight" HVAC air currents. I try not to place lures in the vicinity of return vents (and supply vents for that matter), and try to find areas that seem "quiet" as far as drafts go. However, the HVAC system is pretty evenly spread making it difficult to find areas that don't feel like the scent is going to get drawn up from the trap right into the return vent. Is there anyone that can speak to a pheromone lures ability to cover a 25' radius (approx.) around the trap, when dealing with HVAC air currents that in some cases seem somewhat noticeable? If anyone has any thoughts that deal with this issue, I would be interested to hear what you have to say. Thanks, Todd -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Museumpests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/pestlist. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/CAMxAh%2BgZE8NXiTewOn%2BCYvmfmu7cEk-W1o7T3csKzNu%2BzDHu7Q%40mail.gmail.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/CAMxAh%2BgZE8NXiTewOn%2BCYvmfmu7cEk-W1o7T3csKzNu%2BzDHu7Q%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Museumpests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/pestlist. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/DM5SPR00MB106047FF3B79D13C41C6272F8C40%40DM5SPR00MB106.namprd14.prod.outlook.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
