Assessing The Bio-Efficacy Of A New Food Bait-The Great Fruit Fly Bait (Gffb), On Selected Watermelon Fields In The Ada West Municipality.

Abstract

The bio-efficacy of the Great Fruit Fly Bait (GFFB) as a food bait was compared with the standard, SUCCESS APPAT (GF-120) for the management of fruit flies in watermelon farms in the Ada West District of Greater Accra Region, Ghana within the period (1st May, 2015-12th June, 2015). The experimental design used for the layout was Randomised Complete Block Design (RCBD). Bait was sprayed-delivered at 50ml per m2 of foliage of watermelons onto the under surface of the leaves but not on fruits at low spray pressure and large droplet size for each of the treatment plots (GFFB and GF-120 plots). Control plots received no treatment. Fruit fly populations in all farms were monitored weekly using two parapheromone attractants- Methyl Eugenol (ME) and CueLure (CL) deployed in homemade Mineral Water Bottle (MWB) traps. A week pre-treatment trapping was carried out before application of the treatments of the three plots. After 4-5 weeks of application a total of 90 fruits were sampled from the treatment plots to determine level of fruit fly infestation. Throughout the study period, a total of 2,554 insects were collected, of which 2,483 (99.68%) were fruit flies and 71 (2.78%) non-target species. In all, one fruit fly species Bactrocera dorsalis was identified. Methyl Eugenol traps recorded high fly catches with most of the catches made on the control field. CueLure traps made no catches on both GFFB and control plots but two fly catches on GF-120. The relative fly densities (the number of flies per trap per day) for Methyl Eugenol traps were 6.509, 5.685 and 10.676 for GFFB, GF-120 and control plots, respectively. Those for CueLure were 0.00, 0.019 and 0.00, respectively for GFFB, GF-120 and control. There was record of fruit fly infestation in the fruits incubated from the experimental plots since some fruit fly pupae were collected, although there was no adult emergence. The GFFB was found to be effective in controlling the fruit flies and there was no significant difference between GFFB and GF-120 in reducing infestation levels of the watermelon fruits.