Winged warehouse menace
October 1st 2008

An insect infestation in the warehouse can be troublesome to deal with and halting production using traditional pest control methods can be costly. Exosect has devised a new solution for moth eradication that leaves the insects confused and the company firmly in charge

The nature and design of indoor manufacturing facilities pose a complex environment for pest management. In warehousing units, infestation can be brought in with the delivery of raw materials and where stock movement is slow, infestation levels can increase if left unchecked.

In the production area, current 24/7 schedules do not lend themselves to the requirements of traditional pest control methods such as insecticide treatments, fumigation or cleaning as halting production in order to carry out these processes is extremely costly.

Exosect is a leading provider of Intelligent Pest Management solutions, focused on producing and developing cost-effective products to help producers, growers and processors reduce their use of insecticides.

Exosect has developed a pheromone mating disruption product for the control of stored product moths. Exosex SPTab is highly suited to the manufacturing environment and causes no upheaval in its placement and management.The tablet is easy to apply directly to flat surfaces as well as storage racking and machinery found in these types of manufacturing and storage environments.

The technology is a food grade wax powder called Entostat.The properties of Entostat powder cause it to adhere to insects when they come into contact with it.The Entostat powder is formulated with minute quantities of active ingredient and uses the target pest population to spread the active ingredient throughout its own population.

Exosex SPTab, is a small tablet consisting of Entostat powder containing minute quantities of 'zeta', the female sex pheromone common to five of the major warehouse moth pests; Ephestia elutella, Ephestia Kuehniella, Ephestia figulilella, Cadra Cautella and Plodia interpunctella.

Sexually confused males The Exosex SPTab tablet works by attracting male moths to the Entostat powder and female pheromone.The male's pheromone receptors become overloaded and so the male is unable to locate females.A male carrying Entostat powder will form a mobile pheromone dispenser, producing 'false' pheromone trails, which attract additional males.

Contact between the males ensures that the Entostat powder and the confusion effect is automatically passed on, this process is called auto-confusion.The result is a state of sexual confusion amongst the male moth population leading to effective mating disruption.The auto-confusion effect dramatically reduces the chances of the female moth to mate. In the unlikely event that mating does occur, delays beyond the optimum period of fertility of the female moth will reduce the number and viability of the eggs.The tablets are designed to be placed at 5m intervals and last 60 days.

Staying active There are many benefits to using Exosex SPTab, primarily the fact that the system provides continuous activity, so should raw material enter the building with an undetected infestation, the system will already be in place and active.As well as this, there are no restrictions on entering the building while the system is in place which is extremely valuable for 24 hour operations.

"We have spent the last few years working in conjunction with pest control operators operating in commercial manufacturing and storage environments, developing this next generation of our intelligent pest control solutions," explains Georgina Donovan, product manager."In commercial trials Exosex SPTab has been proven to be a great success." Please contact the company for more information using the number on the right.