Manav Mander

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, January 3

An eco-friendly fruit fly trap developed by Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) are turning out to beneficial to the farmers for the management of fruit flies in fruits like kinnow, guava, mango, pear, peach and plum.

Among the various limiting factors for the quality fruit production of these crops, fruit flies, bactrocera dorsalis and bactrocera zonata can cause up to 100 per cent damage in rainy season to guava, 85 per cent to kinnow, 80 per cent to pear, 78 per cent to peach and 30 per cent to mango and plum.

Dr Sandeep Singh from department of Fruit Science said that the PAU has sold nearly 15 lakh fruit fly traps directly to the farmers meanwhile 6 lakh have been given free to the farmers and 4.5 lakh have been sold on 80 per cent subsidy.

Application of insecticides disrupts the ecosystem and causes numerous hazards. Among the various alternate strategies available for the management of fruit flies, the use of pheromone traps stands as the most outstanding alternative.

“One fruit fly trap costs Rs100 and 16 fruits fly traps are required for one acre and are effective for a month. Not only farmers from Punjab but from neighbouring states like Haryana and UP are also drawing benefits from the traps,” said Singh.

Kinnow, guava, mango, pear and peach are important fruits of the state while plum is a minor crop which can be planted as a filler .

Adding further he said that rainy season guava crops suffers maximum infestation due to carry over of fruit flies from other early ripening fruit crops, namely, peach, pear, mango, litchi, plum, grapes, loquat, jamun, sapota, pomegranate, fig, banana and papaya and from many vegetable crops especially cucumbers.

The application of insecticides is not much effective and more over cause numerous hazards to the environment. “The fruit fly trap developed by the PAU is the best as it does not allow male fruit flies to breed, added Singh.