Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) as a component of area-wide integrated management of fruit flies: Status and scope

The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) is an effective, species specific and environment friendly approach to achieve area-wide management of insect pests and has been successfully applied against several species of fruit flies like Ceratitis capitata Wied, Anastrepha ludens Loew and Bactrocera spp. in different countries. It involves releasing a large number of specially reared and sterilized male insects into the target area where they mate with wild females of same species resulting in failure of off-spring production thus gradually bringing down the pest population. The SIT was conceived by Knipling in 1955 and was used to successfully eradicate the New World Screwworm, Cochliomyia hominivorax Coquerel, a cattle pest, from North and Central America. This can be used in a wide range of situations either for prevention of establishment of new pests or to suppress or eradicate the existing pests. Use of SIT resulted in an enormous growth in the export of fresh fruits and vegetables in Mexico, Chile, South Africa, USA etc. In this paper, we attempted a concise review of the mechanism, application, status and impact of SIT on area wide management of fruit flies across the world and the current Indian scenario of this technology.