Color preferences of fruit flies to methyl eugenol traps, population trend and dominance of fruit fly species in citrus orchards of Sargodha, Pakistan
Zaheer Sikandar, Dr. Muhammad Babar Shahzad Afzal, Muhammad Umar Qasim, Ansa Banazeer, Abdul Aziz, Muhammad Nawaz Khan, Khalid Mehmood Mughal, Hira Tariq
The present study was conducted on evaluating the color preferences of fruit flies and their population dynamics in citrus orchards of Citrus Research Institute, Sargodha by installing traps of 11 different colors in three replicates. This research work was done in the year 2016 and 2017 from July to September. It was found from the pooled data of both years that maximum populations of fruit flies (irrespective of species) were attracted to yellow (78.59±16.43 flies/trap/week) and transparent (73.68±14.27 flies/trap/week) colored traps. In the year, 2016, peak population with 5151 flies was observed in the August, however in the year 2017, two peaks were observed in the 3rd week of August (1937 flies) and September (1975 flies). The species of fruit flies identified from citrus orchards were Bactrocera zonata and B. dorsalis. B. zonata with occurrence of 89.14%-91.66% was highly dominant in citrus orchard as compared to B. dorsalis with 8.33%-10.85% occurrence. From this experiment it can be concluded that fruit flies show more attraction to yellow and transparent colored traps, therefore timely installation of these traps is recommended as a part of integrated pest management for monitoring, detection and control of fruit flies.
Zaheer Sikandar, Dr. Muhammad Babar Shahzad Afzal, Muhammad Umar Qasim, Ansa Banazeer, Abdul Aziz, Muhammad Nawaz Khan, Khalid Mehmood Mughal, Hira Tariq. Color preferences of fruit flies to methyl eugenol traps, population trend and dominance of fruit fly species in citrus orchards of Sargodha, Pakistan. J Entomol Zool Stud 2017;5(6):2190-2194.