AgroPages-Embrapa achieves fruit fly monitoring with ISCA’s technology-Agricultural news

By Leonardo Gottems, reporter for AgroPages

The monitoring system for the fruit fly started recently in the Mountains of Rio Grande do Sul, the region that is the largest temperate weather fruit producer in Brazil, where abundant grapes, apples, and peaches are produced.

The initiative, started by the Wine and Grape unit of Embrapa, uses the ISCAbola trap (of the McPhail type) with the hydrolized protein ISCAMosca to attract the insects.

The fruit fly gets to the fruit farms seeking protein sources for oviposition or feeding and ends up being attracted to the inside part of the trap due to the odor emitted by the trap. After entering the funnel of ISCAbola, it tries to escape with the transparency of the polycarbonate, but ends up dying from exhaustion.

According to Embrapa, by using one trap per hectare, two species of the fruit fly are monitored: Anastrepha fraterculus and Ceratitis capitata. The material captured is conducted by the Entomology Laboratory, where an analysis is made for the publication of the “Informative Report about the Fruit Fly Alert System on farms with stone fruits,” available at the link: https://www.embrapa.br/sistema-de-alerta

The reports are recommendations for the monitoring of and action against plague control, besides other guidance related to the crop management. The reports are also delivered through e-mail and WhatsApp for those interested.

In the region of Pelotas, south of Rio Grande do Sul, Embrapa Temperate Weather monitors, on a weekly basis, the oriental fruit moth (Grapholita). In this case, there are specific traps combined with the traps using a sexual pheromone as an attraction.

Another technology that has been presented and has been really effective against the infestation of the whitefly this year is Anamed. By being mixed against the insecticide, this attraction becomes “attract-and-kill” or a “toxic trap.” According to Isca Technologies, the differential of Anamed is its effectiveness while attracting from a long and short distance the smell of sugars that is also a phage-stimulant.

According to Dori Edson Nava, a researcher for Embrapa Temperate Weather, the flies are considered plagues that are key to fruit growing. “The damage occurs due to the oviposition of fruits and after the larvae hatching, it results in rotting. Besides, the females, during the oviposition, open up for the entrance of micro-organisms that generate a loss in pre and post-harvest, as it occurs with the brown rot.”

According Nava, the control of the fly is focused at the adult stage of the insect, being used mostly when the monitoring indicates more incidences of these insects in the farms. “If the presence of the fly is detected, the recommendation is: use the toxic trap,” recommended Nava.

One of the partners of the Alert System is Evandro Faguerazzi, who produces and sells peaches and plums in the municipality of Bento Gonçalves (Rio Grande do Sul). “This support is very interesting for the control of whitefly because often there is not enough time for us small producers to do this monitoring correctly. I expect to reduce the number of applications of the products and can also be able to apply the product at the right time,” he commented.

For the president of the Union of Industries of Sweets and Canned Food, Paulo Crochemore, with these tools “the yields have increased a lot, even facing weather issues and growing from a production of seven to 10 tons per hectare to 20 tons per hectare,” informed the representative of the industry.

“I experienced a variety of traps and attractions to manage the fruit fly. The best solution that I found was the Bola trap and the Torula Pelets. Though I have used the McPhail traps with success, I found the Bola trap to be an improvement with better results in capturing. The suggestions provided by entomologists at ISCA and the personnel for customer support were also very useful, they advised me about the management of the fruit fly and insect management of plagues in general,” said Christy Bohnet, an olive grower and pest control advisor in Los Gatos, California.

Hang Do, contract biologist from Riverside, California, said: “I have tested the Bola trap in the field with two other traps commonly used by flies. Though I have not used the same attraction, capturing the flies with the Bola trap was significantly higher than with two other traps.”