Attractiveness of Gyplure Masked by Impurities

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Abstract
After the laboratory synthesis of gyplure (Jacobson 1960, Jacobson and Jones 1962), a sex attraclant for the male gypsy moth, Porthetria dispar (L.), and its establishment as a valuable survey tool for delineating areas of infestation of this destructive insect (Jacobson 1962a, 1962b), the possibility of using gyplure to control the gypsy moth was investigated. In 1961, high concentrations of both liquid and granular formulations of commercially piepared gyplure were applied by aircraft over an infested 400-acre island in Lake Winnepesaukee, New Hampshire, in an effort to prevent male moths from locating and successfully mating with females (Burgess 1964). Field observations revealed that this particular lot of gyplure had no effect on male mating behavior. Subsequent investigations showed that its ineffectiveness was due to a masking effect of the inactive trans form of gyplure, and possibly related byproducts, on the activity of the cis form (Jacobson 1963). Accordingly, we developed chromatographic methods (Jones and Jacobson 1964) for determining the content of cis-gyplure in samples of gyplure prepared in the laboratory and the pilot plant, as well as for separating the cis isomer from its contaminants on a small scale.

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