Management of fruit flies in rainy season guava through male annihilation technique using methyl eugenol based traps

Abstract

The results revealed that 16 traps/acre had significantly more population of captured males of Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) and B. zonata (Saunders) compared to 4, 8 and 12 traps/acre. More the number of males captured, less were the maggots/fruit and the fruits in 16 traps/ acre had significantly less number of maggots. Population of fruit flies started appearing in 28th SMW on guava crop and reached maximum during 39th SMW. A total of 80,663.99 males were trapped from 28th to 39th SMW. Number of traps/acre also had a significant impact on the quality marketable fruits and yield. Yield/ acre varied from 6.08 metric tonnes in 4 traps/acre to 8.06 metric tonnes in 16 traps/acre compared to only 0.22 metric tonne in untreated control. Population was positively correlated with relative humidity and sunshine but maximum temperature, minimum temperature, mean temperature, wind speed, rainfall, evaporation and number of rainy days had negative impact. The peak activity of fruit flies was found coinciding with the maturity of fruit.