The effects of methyl eugenol, cue lure and plant essential oils in rubber foam dispenser for controlling Bactrocera dorsalis and Zeugodacus cucurbitae

Abstract

Bactrocera dorsalis and Zeugodacus cucurbitae are the most economically important pests of fruits and vegetables production. Male lures like, methyl eugenol (ME) and cue lure (CL) in conjunction with insecticides are commercially used to attract and kill these pests. We investigated, herein, the application of plant essential oils (basil, clove, citronella, and eucalyptus) with ME and CL for both toxicity and attraction. Through the use of rubber foam as a base, basil oil (BO) was found to be highly toxic to B. dorsalis and Z. cucurbitae, and was evaluated for potency with ME and CL as effective attraction mechanisms. Our results found 15.7-20.3 % of attraction for B. dorsalis using ME, separately or mixed with basil oil. The separate CL found 20.3 % while the ME+CL mixture provided 21.5 % attraction for Z. cucurbitae. In field tests, a greater number of B. dorsalis were trapped with ME alone (20.4 fly/trap/day, FTD), whereas the attraction of the ME and BO mixture was relatively low. For Z. cucurbitae, ME+CL (0.1-0.7 FTD) and CL (0.2-0.6 FTD) trapped more flies than mixtures combining BO, suggesting that combinations of BO with ME in rubber foam bases may be a viable alternative for the control B. dorsalis but not for Z. cucurbitae.