MANAGEMENT OF FRUIT FLIES: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

Abstract

Fruit flies are the most notorious pests of horticultural commmodities throughout the world. Being ubiquitous in distribution, these flies are reported from almonst all agroclimatic conditions of the world and are regarded as pests of international significance. The high reproductive potential, polyphagous nature and ability to adapt to varied clinmatic conditions has made fruit flies a very difficult pest to manage. A single management tactic does not provide effective control of the pest, hence different methods need to be integrated to achieve desired level of contol. The present chapter provides information on different management options available along with the level of control achieved with each option. Fruit flies belong to one of the largest family Tephritidae of the order Diptera. The fruit flies are ubiquitous in distribution occupying regions from tropical, subtropical to temperate regions of the world. There are nearly 4500 species of fruit flies under the family Tephritidae reported throughout the world with 400 species of fruit flies under the genus Bactrocera (David and Ramani, 2011). The tephritidits are identified by the three costal breaks in the wing at the humeral subcostal and costal vein. The size of the fruit flies differs and is affected by the host (Sharma and Gupta 2018b). Fruit flies belonging to the genus Bactrocera are the most devastating pests of fruit and agricultural commodities throughout the world. The change in the climatic conditions has provided adaptive advantage to these fruit flies resulting in frequent outbreaks in various fruit crops (Sultana et al., 2017). Fruit flies affect the quality and quanity of the fruits therby affecting their production and market potential and leading to about 40- 80 percent crops losses (Kibira et al 2015).