Food baited traps in fruit fly management: Present status and future prospects

Behavioural management of fruit flies

Abstract

Fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) pose a serious threat to horticultural crops. Globally, fruit flies are responsible for reducing the export value of fruits and vegetables up to 30 to 100 percent. The fruit fly females are responsible for economic damage by laying about 300-400 eggs at a time on the rind of the fruits. Upon their emergence, the maggots feed on the fruits, causing them to rot and decay. Managing fruit flies is a challenging task as they have high reproductive capacity and greater adaptability. Locally, fruit flies are trapped using fish meal as lure but because of its putrefying properties, it also attracts other dipteran flies and occasionally helpful insects like parasitoids, which poses a limitation. While, farmers rely on pesticides to manage this notorious pest. Male Annihilation Technique (MAT), which exploits the olfactory senses to mass trap the fruit flies are very much successful where the males alone are trapped using para pheromones viz., methyl eugenol, cue-lure etc. But in recent years, a wide range of food materials;fruit pulp, vegetable pulp, protein hydrolysate, etc. have been utilized as baits to catch fruit flies, both male and female. The review discusses the several types of food baits that are used to attract fruit flies and how to use them to trap both sexes more successfully.