Extract of Pimenta Racemosa as Attractant for Bactrocera Dorsalis in Mango Orchards

The status of Bactrocera dorsalis as a destructive pest of fruits including mango continues to be a challenge among farmers at Ghana. Although chemical insecticides have been employed to manage its incidence and damage, there still exist gaps that need be addressed including concerns on toxic residues on fruits and the possibility of resistance evolvement by this pest to insecticides. The alternate management for the fruit fly should therefore be environmentally friendly and with minimal side effects. The objective was to compare the attractiveness of homemade lures of aqueous leaf extract of Pimenta racemosa and a commercial attractant containing methyl eugenol. The research involved the use of leaf extracts of Pimenta racemosa to trap Bactrocera dorsalis was conducted in five mango orchards in two agro-ecological zones in Ghana during the major mango fruiting season of 2017. Three experimental orchards were each sectioned into five blocks of 20 trees each. Four trees in each block formed the sampling trees making 20 sampling trees per orchard received the lures as treatments. The lures were dispensed in homemade traps made of PET containers. A total of 174,388 individual arthropods were captured of which 171,412 were identified as B. dorsalis and 2,976 identified as non-target arthropods. There was a significant difference between the performance of the commercial lure and the leaf extracts (P < 0.05) which was expected. The ability of the Pimenta extracts in the homemade traps to capture some fruit flies is an indication of its potential as a low-cost option to complement the more expensive commercial for small farm holdings.