Perspectives for Synergic Blends of Attractive Sources in South American Palm Weevil Mass Trapping: Waiting for the Red Palm Weevil Brazil Invasion

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Palm weevils—both South American and red palm weevils—threaten economically relevant palms, affecting oil and fruit production with a corresponding social impact. The natural tendency of the red palm weevil to explore vast territories in combination with corridors of cultivated susceptible palm species drives pest expansion in new territories. Invasion still occurs westward, from Sundaland to Portugal and the West-African coast, including the Canary Archipelago. The red palm weevil menaces the South American oil palm plantations, opening a new double-pest scenario and consequential damages or a possible coexistence with reciprocal competitive exclusion phenomena opportunities. On the brink of the red palm weevil’s entrance into South America, we present available options for multiple lure-use in contaminating stations for the sustainable and effective management of both pests. ABSTRACT: Coupling several natural and synthetic lures with aggregation pheromones from the palm weevils Rhynchophorus palmarum and R. ferrugineus reveals a synergy that results in an increase in pest captures. The combined attraction of pure pheromones, ethyl acetate, and decaying sweet and starchy plant tissue increases the net total of mass-trapped weevils. The 2018 entrance of the red palm weevil (RPW) into South America has threatened palm-product income in Brazil and other neighboring countries. The presence of the new A1 quarantine pest necessitates the review of all available options for a sustainable mass-trapping, monitoring, and control strategy to ultimately target both weevils with the same device. The effective lure-blend set for the mass-trapping system will attract weevils in baiting and contaminating stations for entomopathogenic fungi that the same weevils will spread.