Evaluation of Food Lures for Fruit Flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) Captured in a Citrus Orchard of the Serra Gaúcha

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of 5 food lures for fruit fly monitoring in citrus orchards in the municipality of Pinto Bandeira, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil, from Nov 2012 to Oct 2013. Food lures included: 1) CeraTrap™ (undiluted), 2) Torula™ (6 tablets of 3 g/L), 3) BioAnastrepha (5%), 4) 10% corn syrup, and 5) 25% red grape juice (control). The lures were replaced weekly with the exception of CeraTrap™, which was replaced every 45 d. McPhail traps were baited with 300 mL of each food lure, and the traps were placed 10 m apart at the edge of the orchard. Traps were rotated weekly to prevent any bias in treatment location. Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) (Diptera: Tephritidae) was the species with the greatest mean number of fruit fly adults per trap per day (FTD), with 7.8, 2.8, 2.6, 1.7, and 0.9 FTD for the food lures CeraTrap™, Torula™, BioAnastrepha, corn syrup, and grape juice, respectively. CeraTrap™ lured A. fraterculus in amounts above the economic threshold (0.5 FTD) over 73% of the study period, whereas Torula™, BioAnastrepha, corn syrup, and grape juice lured A. fraterculus in amounts above the control level for 28, 20, 11, and 6% of the study period, respectively. Thus, the hydrolyzed protein CeraTrap™ showed the highest efficacy for fruit fly monitoring in the citrus orchard.