1Department of Plant Protection, Anbil Dharmalingam Agricultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Tiruchirappalli - 620 027, Tamil Nadu, India
2Department of Plant Protection, Horticultural College and Research Institute for Women, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Tiruchirappalli - 620 027, Tamil Nadu, India
3Director, Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Aduthurai - 612101, Tamil Nadu, India
4Department of Fruit Science, Horticultural College and Research Institute for Women, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Tiruchirappalli - 620 027, Tamil Nadu, India
*Corresponding author: vigneshsivakumaran@gmail.com (ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0657-1459)
Online published on 7 October, 2020.
Mango is the second major fruit crop cultivated in India, it is known as “King of fruits” owing to delicious quality of fruit with richness in vitamins and minerals and has a socio economic significance in international market. It is attacked by many insects and mite pests; the yield and quality aspects of the mango are highly inflicted by fruit flies and make it unmarketable and inconsumable. The varied agro climatic conditions prevailed in tropical and subtropical regions makes them to spread all over the country. The documented information in a particular area on the population dynamics of fruit flies is essential to take preventive measures and to implement suitable management strategies. Keeping this in mind, the experiment on its species diversity, distribution pattern with its varietal preference of fruit flies in mango ecosystem was undertaken by using methyl eugenol based parapheromone traps during 2017-18 at Anbil Dharmalingam Agricultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Tiruchirappalli. The major diversity of species registered in mango ecosystem is viz., Bactrocera caryeae (Kapoor), B.dorsalis (Hendel) and B.correcta (Bezzi). The activity of fruit fly is maximum in the month of August and September with the mean catch ranges from 27.00 to 57.00 flies/ trap/week. The poor activity of fruit flies in mango orchards was registered in the month of November to February with the least trapped population of < 3.0 flies/trap/week. Considering the varietal preference, the prevalence of B.correcta both in rumani and PKM 1 varieties is comparatively less when compared with the B.dorsalis and B.caryeae. The correlation analysis results revealed that, the fruit fly incidence is positively correlated with maximum, minimum temperature and negatively correlated with morning, evening relative humidity (RH) and rainfall.
Highlights
• In India, the fruit fly Bactrocera sp. is most prevalent in mango and cause economic loss.
• The problem of fruit flies in a mango orchard can be easily mitigated by proper periodical assessment and using parapheromone traps.
• To limit proliferation, it is essential to control the fly population at the beginning of the season.
Fruit fly, Bactrocera spp, Mango, Diversity, Distribution, Varietal preference
