Studies on seasonal activity and effect of weather parameters on population dynamics of fruit flies in mango orchard.
Nagaraj K. S., Jaganath S., Shafeeq Bawoor, Srikanth L. G., Husainnaik Mahamadtoufeeq
Author Affiliation: Department of Horticulture, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore - 65, Karnataka, India.
Trends in Biosciences 7 : 1066-1071
Abstract : Studies were made on seasonal activity and effect of weather parameters on population dynamics of fruit flies in mango orchard during 2008-2009 at GKVK campus, Bangalore. Monitoring studies on seasonal activity revealed occurrence of B. dorsalis, B. correcta and B. zonata throughout the year in mango orchard. Fruit flies had two major peaks during second and third week of July (28th and 29th standard week) with the mean trap catches of 57.7 and 48.7 fruit flies/trap/week respectively. However lowest number of fruit flies (2.2 fruit flies/trap/week) were recorded during the fourth week of December (52nd standard week). In 2009 three minor peaks and one major peak was observed during first, second, third and fourth week of April (14th, 15th, 16th and 17th standard week respectively) with the mean trap catches of 32.6, 34.8, 36.2 and 43.2 fruit flies/trap/week respectively. There was high significant positive correlation between trap catches of B. dorsalis and minimum temperature (r=0.546**) morning relative humidity (r=0.558**) and afternoon relative humidity (r=0.562**). Overall influence of weather parameters ontrap catches of B. dorsalis, B. correcta and B. zonata was to the extent of 45.2, 19.6 and 51.1 per cent respectively.