Mercer County is home to several agritourism businesses. Most of these business draw in customers from all over the state with the fall activities like visiting pumpkin patches and corn mazes. It is important for these growers to sustain a decent crop of pumpkins to fill the needs of their consumers throughout the fall season. Otherwise, they must purchase pumpkins elsewhere to meet the demand and make it through the entire season. 

A grower started to notice significant crop loss late in the summer as pumpkins were starting to mature. After working with the County Extension Agent for Horticulture and the Entomology and Plant Pathology UK Extension specialist, it was concluded the grower was losing pumpkins to squash vine borer(SVB). SVB is a moth that lays eggs on cucurbits, the larvae hatches out and burrows into the plant. It feeds for a month inside of the plant before exiting to the ground to overwinter. They will remain there and pupate and then emerge in the early summer as adults. By the time the insect exits the plant is when damage is noticeable and unfortunately nothing a grower can do to treat it at this time. 

The following growing season the same grower worked with the Mercer County Horticulture Agent and UK Entomology specialist to come up with a management plan to prevent such significant loss. Pheromone traps were placed around the pumpkin growers’ fields. These traps were used to monitor when the adults were active in the fields. Once it was confirmed that the adults were active, the grower was notified to make a treatment on the field. 

The monitoring and timed treatments led to a successful pumpkin season for this grower. There was no loss of pumpkins due to SVB, compared to the previous season where there was a 20% loss. This also reduced the number of pumpkins the grower had to purchase to supplement at his farm stand. Other pumpkin growers in the area also benefited from this project, as they network together and shared when these pests were active and when to treat.