Abstract
This chapter describes an areawide pest management effort for the cotton boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis; the most costly insect pest in the history of American agriculture) eradication in the USA (including North Carolina and South Carolina, California, Arizona and north-western Mexico, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, West Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico and Texas). This programme involves the use of traps, insecticides, diapause control, sex pheromones, sterile insect technique, host plant resistance, pathogens, predatory arthropods, parasitic wasps, and cultural methods of boll weevil control. The sociological, economic and environmental impacts of boll weevil eradication are discussed. The completion of the programme in many of the cotton-growing areas of the USA has resulted in cotton production systems with greatly improved economic and environmental sustainability.