Impact of Trap Design and Placement When Monitoring for the Bandedwinged Whitefly and the Sweetpotato Whitefly (Homoptera: Aleyrodidae)

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Abstract
Several designs for yellow sticky traps were placed on the periphery of cotton and lettuce fields and evaluated to determine the most efficient trap design for capturing bandedwinged whiteflies, Trialeurodes abutilonea (Haldeman), and sweetpotato whiteflies, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius). Cylindrical traps caught more (55% of the total) than the other designs; upward-facing horizontal traps caught 26%, vertical traps 16%, and downward-facing horizontal traps 3%. The number of both species of whiteflies captured by the various traps placed around field periphery was then compared with the number caught on traps in lettuce field interiors; catches from cylindrical and upward-facing horizontal traps were consistently correlated at high levels. Traps placed at ground level caught a significantly higher number of T. abutilonea and B. tabaci when compared with those placed at 50 and 100 cm (82% of total versus 11 and 7%, respectively). Correlation coefficients for number of whiteflies captured at all three heights and number of whiteflies captured in the field interiors were significant. The coefficients of variation, however, were lower for the traps placed at ground level than for the two aerial heights, suggesting that traps placed at 50 and 100 cm contributed disproportionately to the variation.