Comparison of different traps attractiveness for olive fruit fly Bactrocera oleae attraction (Diptera: Tephritidae)

The olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae Gmelin (Diptera: Tephritidae) is the most important and widespread pest in the olive growing countries in the world. This pest was reported from 13 provinces of Iran in 2004. The larvae feed upon the pulp, resulting in a significant quantitative and qualitative loss in the production of table olives and oil. For identification of suitable methods in attraction and trapping of the pest, this experiment was conducted in a randomized blocks design with 5 replication and 5 treatments, yellow sticky traps with pheromone, McPhail trap with hydrolyzed protein (3%) and malathion (0.2 %), pet traps (1.5 lit. mineral water bottles) with hydrolyzed protein (3%) and malathion (0.2 %), pet traps with Success bait (3%) and yellow sticky traps without any attractive materials. After analyzing data variances, a comparison was made on the averages using Duncan's methods in probability level of 5%. The study revealed a significant difference in attraction of adult B. oleae by pheromone traps (98.20 ± 16.48) than other treatments but there was not any significant difference within others (P<0.001, df=(4, 20), F=31.08). After the pheromone traps, there were the McPhail traps, pet traps with Success bait, pet trap with protein and yellow sticky traps respectively. Also pheromone traps had a significant difference in attraction of male (66.80 ±9.66) (P<0.001, df=(4, 20), F=43.61) and female adults (31.20 ±6.29) (P<0.001, df=(4, 20), F=19.23) than other treatments too. In this matter there was not any significant difference within others. It was noticed that pheromone traps had a significant difference in attracted the highest number of adult flies in every seasons during a year. In winter (late December) only pheromone traps were suitable to attract the adults.