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Abstract
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The plum bud gall mite, Acalitus phloeocoptes (Nalepa) is a pest of Rosaceae plants. The feeding
activity of this mite create galls around buds. Adult A. phloeocoptes overwintering females survive
in the hardened galls as the infective population for the next year. After the serious damages
observed in plum trees of Miandowab region, sampling was done and the pest identified as A.
phloeocoptes. No economic damage was disclosed in Iran before and it seems the mites spread very
fast and the problem grows every year. So this mite biology must be investigated. Regarding the
study of the survived mites in different side branches, on early January 2017, 100 branches of one
or two years old in four sides including north, south, east and west of each plum trees of an orchard
were marked with ribbon tapes as field-wintered group and another 100 branches were brought to
the laboratory and stored in constant 5°C as laboratory-stored group. From 30 February to 24 March
2017, 12 branch sections were removed from laboratory cold-storage and 12 branches were
collected from the orchard at two weeks intervals. A sticky-band trap was placed near the gall on
each branch and branches were placed at 15°C and 13:11 (L: D) h photoperiod. Traps were replaced
every 24 hours and captured mites were counted using magnification 10 of Leitz LABORLUX S
microscope until no more mites were trapped. Finally the total mites captured in each branch
counted and a comparison between means for total emerged mites from the two group branches of
different sides at each collection date was made using MSTATC software. The mean number of
total mites emerged from field-wintered branches (592) was more than that in laboratory-stored
branches (111). It shows that the mites better survived in the field and constant 3°C is fatal for
them. The comparison between means for total emerged mites from branches of different sides
showed significant difference between them. The south side branches had more emerged mites
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