Rise and fall of the apple redbugs [antikvár]

RISE AND FALL OF THE APPLE REDBUGS1Carl W. SchaeferBiological Sciences Group University of Connecticut Storrsj Connecticut 06268The apple redbugs were once serious pests of commercial apple orchards. First noticed by Slingerland in 1896 from New York (Slingerland 1909), they swept through the rest of the apple-growing regions of the northeast in the next 35 years and gradually became reduced until by the late 1930's they were a minor and sporadic nuisance. Since then they have become so much reduced and are so well controlled in the regular spray schedule that they are no longer considered important.There are 2 species, Heterocordylus malinus Reuter, known as the "dark apple redbug" or simply (and formerly) as the "apple redbug;" and Lygidea mendax Reuter, the "bright," "false," or "lined apple redbug." Of the 2 L. mendax is the more widespread and, where both of them exist, the more damaging (Dean 1945; Dean and Chapman 1946). So much more important is L. mendax than H. malinus that the currently approved common name for it is "apple redbug" \Vide Muesebeck 1942), which renders invalid the earlier application of that name to H. malinus.The major injury is done to the fruit, causing it when young to shrivel and sometimes to drop, and downgrading it when older; the damage to the older fruit somewhat resembles that of the plum curculio, but it lacks the characteristic crescent scar. Lesser, but conspicuous, damage is done to leaves and, more rarely, to young twigs. The nymphs do the most damage, the adult stage being reached when the fruit is large and hardy.1Hemiptera-Heteroptera rMiridaeMemoirs, Connecticut Entomological Society, 1974