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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Gainesville, Florida » Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology » Chemistry Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #86571
Title: TRAPPING FEMALES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN FRUIT FLY (DIPTERA: TEPHRITIDAE) IN ISRAEL: COMPARISON OF LURES AND TRAP TYPE

Author
item GAZIT, YAOV - "ISRAEL COHEN" INSTITUTE
item ROSSLER, YORAM - "ISRALE COHEN" INSTITUTE
item Epsky, Nancy
item Heath, Robert

Submitted to: Journal of Economic Entomology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/23/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: The Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly) is of considerable economic importance for fruit production in Israel and is the most important pest of fruits and vegetables worldwide. There is a great deal of interest in developing attract and kill systems for control of this pest. Therefore, scientists at the Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Research, ARS, USDA in Gainesville, Florida, in collaboration with scientists from the "Israel Cohen" Institute for Biological Control, Citrus Marketing Board of Israel, Bet-Dagan, Israel tested the effectiveness of traps and a female-targeted synthetic attractant developed by the USDA scientists in comparison with several traps and protein baits that are used in Israel. Field tests were conducted in areas with wild populations of medfly in citrus in Israel. Results from these studies demonstrated that traps baited with the female-targeted synthetic attractant captured more medflies than traps baited with protein bait, and that a higher percentage of females were captured when the synthetic attractant was used in a plastic McPhail trap versus a yellow sticky panel trap design. Thus a McPhail trap baited with the synthetic attractant was the best female-targeted trap for medflies among the traps that were tested.

Technical Abstract: We studied the effectiveness of four trap types and three female attractant baits for the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann). The traps were: International Pheromone McPhail trap, which is a clear plastic McPhail trap with yellow base; an open-bottom cylindrical trap, which is a dark green trap that uses a light green adhesive paper insert; Frutect trap, which is a yellow panel coated with adhesive spray that has a red sphere inserted in the middle; and the Ga'aton trap, which is a yellow plastic container (5 liter) with openings on both sides. The three female attractants tested were Naziman, which is a locally produced protein hydrolysate; a proprietary liquid protein that is used in the Frutect trap; and a three component food-based synthetic attractant comprised of ammonium acetate, putrescine and trimethylamine. Our results ranked the trap and attractant performances as follows: McPhail trap baited with the synthetic attractant > Frutect baited with proprietary lure > cylindrical trap baited with the synthetic attractant > McPhail trap baited with Naziman and Ga'aton baited with either the synthetic attractant or with Naziman. In subsequent tests, the substitution of the synthetic attractant for the proprietary protein bait improved the numbers of C. capitata captured in both McPhail trap and Frutect, and improved C. capitata- specificity in McPhail traps. Equal numbers of fruit flies were captured in McPhail traps and Frutect traps baited with the synthetic attractant, however, a higher percentage of the flies captured by the McPhail trap were females. Thus a McPhail trap baited with the synthetic attractant was the best female-targeted trap for C. capitata among the trap and lure combinations tested.