Fruit flies deposit their eggs in fruits and fruits begin to rot. This causes losses especially for the export market, but these can be controlled using pheromone traps with methyl eugenol.
The traps can be made from transparent plastic jars by making small holes on the top of each of the 4 sides of the bottle and holes punched to avoid rain water from entering into the bottle.
Put a string through the lid and hang it in the shade at a height at which you can easily monitor on a tree then attach a pheromone block on the other side of the string in the jar. Replace the pheromone blocks after 6 months.
Hang 10-40 traps per hectare near dumping sites and at the boundary of the orchard. You can also spray at the boundary once a week with food baits mixed with insecticides.
Traps in plastic bottles
Traps can also be made using plastic water bottles and these are made by making 2 holes about 3cm wide on the upper side of the bottle, a hole is then put on the cap and a wire passed through it.
Make a cotton wick to hold the pheromone mixed with the insecticide but use an insecticide with no odour. 4 parts of the pheromone are mixed with one part of the insecticide.
Let the wire touch the cotton wick and hang the traps in the tree canopy. You can use one trap per tree beginning from a month after flowering up to harvesting of the fruits.
The odour fades with time and should be replaced every after a month. Incase fruit production is organic, dont use insecticide but use special traps that don‘t allow fruit flies to leave after entering.
