Fruit fly trapping experiences in Reunion Island

Since the last 15 years, varlous experiments have been conducted in CIRAD Réunion, ni order to progressively improve the trapping systems for males and females of the Ceratitis spp. (C. rosa, C. capitata and C. catoirii) present in the island. Various types of traps, attractants, dispensers have been evaluated in order to improve male monitoring systems. A standard trapping system was defined some ten years ago, Le. a Nadel dry trap (model " Addis "), baited with a Magnet (Agrisense) dispenser of trimedlure, and a DDVP strip. This system was found much convenient and recommended to the growers who largely adopted it for monitoring fruit fly populations in citrus or mango orchards. Other experiments were conducted in order to improve the trapping systems for fernales, for monitoring or control purposes. Varlous food attractants, synthetic lures, trap types were evaluated during these studies. For fernales Ceratitis spp., the best performances were obtained with Tephri-trap, deviced by J.P. Ros (INIA, Madrid), used with a DDVP strip, and the " Mures " fernale attractant obtained from R. Heath (USDA). In recent experiments, various food attractants are compared in traps, in order to define the most effective ones to attract the fernales of the melon fly, Bactrocera cucurbitae, and the tomato fruit fly, Neoceratitis cyanescens. Our objective in these trapping experiments is to adapt optimal bait spray techniques against these flies damaging vegetables, whose control is largely based on cover sprays with non-selective pesticides. (Résumé d'auteur