BIOLOGY OF CUCURBIT FRUIT FLY, BACTROCERA CUCURBITAE AND EFFICACY OF DIFFERENT TRAPS FOR ITS CONTROL ON BOTTLE GOURD, LAGENARIA SICERARIA

Abstract

Two sets of experiment were conducted in the laboratory of the Department of Entomology and experimental field, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Bangladesh during October, 2016 to March, 2017 using bottle gourd variety ‘BARI-Lau 1’. Incase of biology, the mean incubation, larval (1st, 2nd and 3rd instars), pre-pupal, pupal and total developmental periods of B. cucurbitae were 1.69±0.28, (1.72±0.33, 1.41±0.31, 2.31±0.51), 0.74±0.17, 9.2±0.78 and 36±1.69 days, respectively. The mean adult longevity, with food and without food was 14.1±1.28 and 5.0±0.81 days, respectively. The morphometric measurements of different stages of B. cucurbitae were also recorded. Incidence of B. cucurbitae as maggot population in bottle gourd was higher in January. Treatments for the management were T1 = Pheromone Trap, T2 = Bait trap with sweet gourd mashed, T3 = Vinegar with rotted fruit trap, T4 = Bait trap with banana mashed, T5 = Funnel pheromone Trap, T6 = Sticky board trap, T7 = Untreated control and laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The highest adult captured in T5 (Funnel Pheromone trap) at different days interval, whereas the lowest (3.07) was captured in T6 (Sticky board trap) and no adult was caught in T7 (untreated control) treatment. Considering the all yield attributing characteristic, such as percent healthy and infested fruits by both weight and number, percent infestation over control, total yield, the treatment T5 showed the best performance for controlling of the B. cucurbitae among all the treatments. T1 showed the second highest performance, whereas, T6 showed the lowest performance. The lowest total fruit yield (57.32 t/ha) was obtained in T7, followed by T6 treatment during the cropping season of bottle gourd.