Bait station devices against fruit flies

Abstract: Mass trapping is a pest management technique used since first decades of the 20th Century to reduce fruit fly populations. The use of fly traps baited with juice, soaked rice bran and other blends of sugar and proteins has been continuously improved until 90’s when ammines-based synthetic attractants were discovered. In parallel with research on attractants, more efficient and easy to handle traps have also been developed. Unfortunately, despite all the improvements achieved, fly traps do not always effectively catch all the flies attracted to their vicinity. Thus, development of new devices that affect all the flies attracted may improve efficacy of attract and kill techniques in the control of fruit flies. In this regarding, bait stations have offered great advantages given that flies only need to land on the device to become affected by a killing agent. Results obtained in our experiments showed that bait stations can effectively reduce fruit fly populations and fruit damage in treated orchards, even improving control level obtained in areas treated with conventional mass trapping technique. Bait stations do not need to effectively catch the flies such as in mass trapping, and this represents a clear advantage. However, bait stations rely on an insecticide agent to affect flies, what could be a drawback for organic production. Moreover, efficacy of other bait station devices based on chemosterilization and attraction-infection were revised, and pros and cons of bait stations are discussed.