Performing Department
Apex bait Technologies, Inc.
Non Technical Summary
The goal of this USDA NIFA phase I project is to develop a semiochemical lure andphagostimulant enhanced bait, 'Snulex' for controlling snails and slugs (gastropods). Thisinnovation will significantly improve the efficacy of molluscicide bait byincreasing the chance of initial discovery of the bait by attracting gastropods, and strongly inducing them to ingest lethal dosesof molluscicide. Snails and slugs are destructive pests of horticultural and agricultural industries worldwide. Gastropod problems are becoming more significant because of the recent shift towards zero-tillage crops. Current management strategies rely mostly on molluscicide bait products. The molluscicide market was worth $711 million in 2021 and is forecasted to reach $900 million by 2026. However, there are a number of limiting factors for aneffective control strategy using current molluscicide bait products. One of the major factors hindering effective control of gastropods is the lack of a strong attractant lure to draw these pests away from host plants. This project aims to-A) develop a semiochemical lure by reconstructing the odor from these attractive sources B) optimize the ability of the lure and phagostimulant blend to outcompete with alternative food sources available in the environment C) optimize the efficient delivery of the lure and phagostimulant blend in the toxic bait. We expect that gastropods will discover the proposed enhanced bait significantly faster and consume 3 times more than existing baits. Our novel lure and phagostimulants will create highly effective technologies, while simultaneously providing environmentally and economically favorable IPM strategies.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
30%
Applied
50%
Developmental
20%
Goals / Objectives
The overall goal of this program is to develop attract and kill technologies capable of drawing pests towards a toxic bait and the development of a feeding stimulant blend which could further enhance (trapping and bait efficacy for gastropods). With the help of a semiochemical lure (a blend of long distance and short distance attractants) and phagostimulants, we aim to reduce the bait application rate by 40%. To validate the technical feasibility of the proposed research to develop a 'novel enhanced bait', the Apex bait team will have three major objectives- 1. Develop a semiochemical lure by reconstructing the odor from food sources and create a phagostimulant blend. 2. Optimize the lure and phagostimulant blend composition's ability to compete with alternative food sources available in the environment. 3. Optimize the efficient delivery of the novel lure and phagostimulant in a toxic bait.
Project Methods
Objective 1: Develop a semiochemical lure by reconstructing the odor from food sources and create a phagostimulant blend.Task 1: Identification of reliable food sources and VOC attractants for snails and slugsBehavioral assays will be conducted to identify different food sources which are attractive to snails and slugs. As we already identified blue-green algae powder as attractive sources to gastropods, we will test the attractiveness of volatile compounds (individual or in combination) obtained from the algae powder. Then, we will combine attractants with known attractive compounds associated with beer and host plants, and test their synergism/additive effect towards snails. For this test, we will randomly select 10-15 snails and place them in plastic container with soil, and water bottle with a cotton wick). We will feed CaCO3, egg shell as a calcium source. We will feed them carrot and lettuce every week. Before the experiment, we will starve them overnight (14-15 h). We will use six containers and place moist paper towels in the bottom of the container. For our attractant bioassay, we will have compounds in rubber septa for slow release and will place septa in a Petri dish with corn flour then space them 15 cm apart. The gastropod attraction will be measured by counting the number of snails/slugs touching the Petri dish or feeding on the base bait.Task 2:Development of a phagostimulant blendFeeding bioassays will be conducted to investigate the phagostimulant properties of different food sources including host plants.In the gastropods feeding preference test, we will offer choices of food by placing them in Petri dishes close to each other (2-3 cm apart). The dry weights of each food (bait consumption) will be measured before and after exposure to snail and slugs.The effect of phagostimulant on snails and slugs' feeding will be determined by analyzing total consumption and feeding rate using standard statistical tests (paired t-test).Objective 2: Optimize the lure and phagostimulant blend composition's ability to compete with alternative food sources available in the environmentTask 3: Competition with environmental odor:In this task, we will perform the field trial of our semiochemical lure and phagostimulant blend. In our preliminary field experiment with blue-green algae (BGA) powder mixed with corn starch, we found it is significantly more attractive to three banded slugs (Ambigolimaxnyctelius) than the control (Figure 6). However, we want to know whether it is more attractive than the host odor, which in this habitat is the daylily. Based on the attractiveness of the lure to garden snails and gray slugs, we will select the three/four of the best performing prototype blend formulations resulting from task 1 for evaluation in gastropods. We will use commercial traps for this task and keep our lure as one treatment and chopped daylily as another treatment, and place them ~2 feet apart. We will have six replications with a space >8 feet. Our field site for this task will be Live Oak Park (Santa Clara, CA) with a daylily planting bed.After 12 h, the traps will be inspected and all gastropods will be counted and removed. Similarly, gastropod feeding preference will be quantified by recording the consumption of treatments containing our phagostimulant blend (powder/grain) and chopped daylily in traps. We will have three locations within the park to understand the competitiveness of the lure developed.Task 4:Non-target studies with the lure:In this task, we will investigate if the semiochemical lure developed for slugs and snails attracts beneficial insects and non-target animals, by using a similar method as proposed by Roda et al. (2019). We will keep our synthetic semiochemical lure inside the trap and place the traps in the field when beneficial insects such as butterflies and bees are active. We will record and identify the number of non-target animals hovering and landing around the treatments.Objective 3: Optimize the efficient delivery of the novel lure and phagostimulant in a toxic baitIn this objective, we plan to incorporate three components to our bait base a) Semiochemical lure (Snulure), b) a phagostimulant blend, and c) an active ingredient to develop the product 'Snulex'. To achieve our goal to develop 'Snulex', first, we will conduct a field experiment comparing developed prototype blends (three or four of the best performing lures and phagostimulant blends which can compete with the host plant) resulting from task 1-4. We will use similar methods and the same park in Santa Clara as mentioned in task 3 to achieve this goal. Second, we will incorporate the blends to registered active ingredients and select the active ingredients based on palatability, efficacy, and non-target effects when mixed in the non-toxic 'Snulex'. Our potential active ingredients include, iron phosphate, boric acid, iron phosphate EDTA as these are considered more environment friendly actives than metaldehyde and we are also considering propietory active developed by Syngenta. Lastly, we will determine the feasibility of the enhanced bait, 'Snulex'. Both laboratory and field behavioral assays will be conducted to test whether the incorporation of the lure, phagostimulant, and active ingredient in our base bait enhances the attraction and stimulates the gastropods to feed more than the bait base. We will compare our product with exiting baits on the market and determine the attraction power, palatability and efficacy.For field trials, we have established collaboration with Dr. Rory Mc Donnell, associate professor at Oregon State University who has more than 10 years of experience working on gastropods and conducting field trials. The prototype bait formulations will be sent to Dr. Mc Donnell for field trials with various species of gastropods found in Oregon.