WileyVacas González, S.; Alfaro Cañamás, C.; Zarzo Castelló, M.; Navarro-Llopis, V.; Primo Millo, J. (2011) Rubber septa are the most common pheromone dispensers used in monitoring traps, but often 28 dispenser performance is not optimized. The key to improve methods based on pheromones as 29 attractants (monitoring, mass trapping, or 'attract and kill') is to know the optimum emission 30 interval, because release rates can strongly affect the attraction. In this work, five levels of 31 pheromone load with different release rates were compared in traps using mesoporous 32 pheromone dispensers to investigate the optimum release rate maximizing L. botrana catches. 33Residual pheromone loads of the dispensers were extracted and quantified by gas 34 chromatography, in order to study release profiles and to estimate the various emission levels. 35The efficacy of pheromone emission was measured in field trials as number of moths caught. 36A quadratic model was fitted to relate the numbers caught vs. the daily emission rates. The 37 resulting quadratic term was statistically significant, confirming the existence of a relative 38 maximum for L. botrana catches. Taking into account that the trial was carried out only in 39 one location, an optimum emission value of ca. 400 µg per day could be considered to 40 enhance the attraction of L. botrana under West-Mediterranean weather conditions. 41 42 3 Introduction 43