Worldwide agriculture depends on technological innovation to increase yield and maintain high quality
of food and fiber products. In the last decade advances in basic insect science and genetic engineering
have presented opportunities to develop innovative approaches to control insect pests that could provide
significant economic and environmental benefits. In this article I review some recent developments that
demonstrate the application of transgenic methods to improve the efficacy of the Sterile Insect Technique
(SIT). These developments provide a technical basis to address some of the operational and economic
limitations of the existing SIT program used to control the codling moth Cydia pomonella Linnaeus, and
suggest the possibility of an expanded future role for this approach for codling moth control.