Pest Management in Horticultural Ecosystems

Studies on pest free area (PFA) with respect to Bactrocera caryeae (Kapoor) was carried out for five years from 2001–2005 in South India, as part of trade prerequisite for export of mangoes from India to Japan. A CABI (UK.) publication attributed the distribution of B. caryeae to South India. However systematic survey (which involved examining >82,000 fruit flies) clearly indicated that the B. caryeae was restricted to a narrow strip (corridor) along the west coast of South India. This zone clearly fitted into “tropical rain forest” climate of Koppen's climatic classification. Further, this corridor is major coconut and rice growing area. Major mango belts are not found in the B. caryeae corridor. Buffer areas to the east of the corridor were free of B. caryeae and no B. caryeae could be reared out of 5443 mangoes examined from major mango belts of South India, which showed that there was no breeding population of B. caryeae in the mango belts. The study clearly established the PFA of B. caryeae to be in a narrow strip on the west coast of South India from Goa to Kanyakumari and that it did not occur in the rest of South India, as well as rest of India.