Program Commencement

CMMCP’s adulticide program starts in late May or early June to coincide with the emergence of spring brood mosquitoes. The program ends in August or September as the adult mosquito population begins to decline and low evening temperatures make adulticide spraying inadvisable.  Both the start date and the end date of the adulticide program relate directly to the current adult mosquito population, status of vector-borne diseases and the prevalent weather conditions. These dates will vary from year to year. Adulticiding is done by CMMCP after astronomical sunset up until astronomical sunrise.

The adulticide program responds to requests from residents or town officials in our service area, or to the threat of mosquito-bore illness as defined by the local Board of Health or the Mass. Dept. of Public Health. No area-wide, random, indiscriminate spraying is performed by CMMCP. We respond only to requests from the public, town or state officials to initiate the adulticide process. Prior to any adulticide operation, surveillance is gathered to gauge the current mosquito population in the area to be sprayed, we ascertain the current weather conditions, and establish other factors that may influence the efficacy of the application. Surveillance data may be gathered in a variety of ways, by light traps, gravid traps, landing counts or other means. No application of any product for the control of adult mosquitoes will be performed if the mosquito population is too low, or if weather conditions may inhibit an application or is prohibited by product label directions. If a town is scheduled for a given evening and no adulticide requests were received, we will only perform landing rates or provide other services in town. All landing rate information is placed in a database to be analyzed for prevalent species, population counts, etc. Landing rates are suspended when mosquito-borne viruses have been identified in Massachusetts or when other factors indicate that they are not advisable.