Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are a destructive invasive species that cause extensive damage to agriculture throughout many regions of the world. In particular wild pigs damage corn more than any other crop, and most of that damage occurs immediately after planting when wild pigs excavate and consume planted seeds. We evaluated whether anthraquinone (AQ), a repellent, could be useful for protecting seed corn from consumption by wild pigs. Specifically, we conducted cafeteria-style tests at 16 bait sites for 6 nights using concentrations of: untreated, 0.5, 1.5, and 3.0% AQ by weight sprayed on whole-kernel corn in AL and TX, USA. We found that repellency for wild pigs was dependent on the AQ concentration, with the greatest repellencies of 95% (AL) and 59% (TX) observed using ~3% AQ. We also found that repellency decreased as the abundance of wild pigs increased at the bait sites. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) did not appear to be repelled by the AQ-coated corn, but white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and mule deer (O. hemionus) were. Overall, our results show promise for the development of a repellent for treating seeds to protect them from wild pigs. We recommend the next steps of testing of the 3% concentration of AQ on corn seeds that are planted underground to optimize the best potential protection against damage from wild pigs.

野生猪（Sus scrofa）是一种破坏性入侵物种，对世界许多地区的农业造成广泛破坏。特别是野猪对玉米的伤害要比其他任何农作物都大，而且大部分伤害是在种植后立即发生的，这是野猪挖掘并消耗了种植的种子。我们评估了蒽醌（AQ）（一种驱避剂）是否可以用于保护种子玉米免受野猪食用。具体来说，我们在美国AL和TX的全内核玉米上喷洒了未经处理的0.5％，1.5％和3.0％AQ（按重量计）的浓度，在16个诱饵部位进行了6天的自助餐厅式测试。我们发现野猪的拒斥性取决于AQ浓度，使用〜3％AQ观察到的最大拒斥率为95％（AL）和59％（TX）。我们还发现，随着诱饵位点野猪数量的增加，驱避力也会降低。浣熊（Procyon lotor似乎没有被AQ包被的玉米所排斥，但是白尾鹿（Odocoileus virginianus）和m鹿（O. hemionus）却被排斥。总体而言，我们的结果表明有望开发出用于处理种子的驱虫剂，以保护它们免受野猪侵害。我们建议对在地下种植的玉米种子上3％的AQ浓度进行测试的下一步，以优化针对野猪造成伤害的最佳潜在保护措施。