Local production of protein bait for fruit fly monitoring and control.
Sewoosunkur Gopaul, Zenz N., Price N.
Author Affiliation: IOC Regional Fruit Fly Programme, Ministry of Agriculture, Food Technology and Natural Resources, Réduit, Mauritius.
: 41-47
Abstract : Protein baits are widely used in fruit fly management, both in traps for monitoring and as spot sprays for control. A range of studies have used McPhail traps to assess the relative performance of commercial protein hydrolysate baits and various home-made autolysates of brewery waste yeast to develop home-made alternatives to imported hydrolysate bait. In Mauritius, locally made yeast autolysate, produced by a combination of heat autolysis and papain enzyme promoted proteolysis, was tested in field experiments using McPhail traps in mango orchards and in wild growing mango trees at 3 locations from December 1998 to January 1999. The most abundant fly species were Bactrocera zonata, Ceratitis rosa and B. cucurbitae. The locally-made bait was generally as effective when used in McPhail traps as commercially obtained protein hydrolysate bait. However, the locally-made bait did not effectively trap B. cucurbitae. Fruit fly catches were greater when protein autolysate was prepared with higher concentrations of papain (2.0 or 4.0 g/litre). In similar experiments in Kenya, conducted in mango orchards in February 2000, certain locally produced autolysate bait formulations out-performed commercial hydrolysate in attracting Ceratitis cosyra.