Impact of close proximity of traps baited with various attractants on fruit fly catch

Abstract

The study was conducted at peach, plum and pear plantation mixed with cucurbits during 2013 at Agricultural Research Institute Swat. The three food attractants, Methyl eugenol (ME), Nu Lure® (NL) and Cue-lure (CL) each comprised of 85% lures, 10% sugar and 5% insecticide (Diptrax 80-SP®) were applied in a plastic trap alone (one trap on a tree) or in combination where two or three traps of these attractants were installed. When single trap used, a distance of 24 meter was maintained while in case of two or three traps on a single tree a distance of 3 or 2 meters was maintained respectively. Each treatment was replicated three times and data were collected on weekly basis. Among the seven treatments, ME & CL baited traps installed on a single tree resulted a significantly higher number of fly catch (61.88) during the six weeks period followed by ME and NL baited traps installed in a single tree with 51.66 mean flies. ME, NL & CL baited traps installed in a single tree recorded 3rd in effectiveness with 47.83 mean number of flies for the whole season. While NL & CL baited traps resulted a significantly lowest number of flies (10.72) catch. Methyl eugenol baited traps installed as a single trap with 24 m distance with other traps resulted in 34.94 flies followed by CL with 26.06 flies while NL was the least effective treatment with 2.06 flies as seasonal mean. A total of 4215 flies were captured in the seven treatments. Bactrocera zonata was the dominant species followed by B. cucurbitae, B.dorsalis, B. diversa and B. tau.