Modeling Pheromone Dispensers Using Genetic Programming Eva Alfaro-Cid 1 , Anna I. Esparcia-Alc´ azar 1 , Pilar Moya 2 , Beatriu Femenia-Ferrer 2 , Ken Sharman 1 , and J.J. Merelo 3 1 Instituto Tecnol´ ogico de Inform´ atica, Universidad Polit´ ecnica de Valencia {evalfaro,anna,ken}@iti.upv.es 2 Instituto Agroforestal del Mediterr´ aneo - Centro de Ecolog´ ıa Qu´ ımica Agr´ ıcola (IAM-CEQA), Universidad Polit´ ecnica de Valencia {mmoyasa,beafefer}@ceqa.upv.es 3 Dept. de Arquitectura y Tecnolog´ ıa de Computadores, Universidad de Granada jmerelo@geneura.ugr.es Abstract. Mating disruption is an agricultural technique that intends to substitute the use of insecticides for pest control. This technique con- sists of the diffusion of large amounts of sexual pheromone, so that the males are confused and mating is disrupted. Pheromones are released us- ing devices called dispensers. The speed of release is, generally, a function of time and atmospheric conditions such as temperature and humidity. One of the objectives in the design of the dispensers is to minimise the effect of atmospheric conditions in the performance of the dispenser. With this objective, the Centro de Ecolog´ ıa Qu´ ımica Agr´ ıcola (CEQA) has designed an experimental dispenser that aims to compete with the dispensers already in the market. The hypothesis we want to validate (and which is based on experimental results) is that the performance of the CEQA dispenser is independent of the atmospheric conditions, as opposed to the most widely used commercial dispenser, Isomate CPlus. This was done using a genetic programming (GP) algorithm. GP evolved functions able to describe the performance of both dispensers and that support the initial hypothesis. 1 Introduction Codling moth, Cydia pomonella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), is the most important pest of pear and apple trees worldwide [1]. Chemical control pro- grammes involve repeated applications of insecticides during the activity period of adults and larvae. This heavy pesticide programme is expensive and disruptive to beneficial orchard fauna, requiring, in addition, the supplemental application of spraying against secondary pests. Resistance to these insecticides, the possi- bility of cross-resistance to others and the limited number of products registered against codling moth, are motivating the implementation of pheromone-based Integrated Pest Management (IPM) systems. In these programmes, the mating disruption technique (MD) is the most promising tactic used to control this key pest in pome fruit production areas around the world [2,3,4]. M. Giacobini et al. (Eds.): EvoWorkshops 2009, LNCS 5484, pp. 635–644, 2009. c  Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009