Oviposition preference of Asian papaya fruit fly Bactrocera Papayae Drew & Hancock (Diptera: Tephritidae) on different ripening stages of mango, Mangifera Indica L.

Abstract

An experiment was conducted in laboratory to determine the offspring of Asian papaya fruit fly Bactrocera papayae Drew & Hancock (Diptera: Tephritidae) on different mango ripening stages. Three different ripening mango fruit stages (i.e unripe, ripe and fully-ripe) were exposed to 21-day-old mated female flies for 24 hrs in no-choice and choice experiments with 5 replicates. The parameter recorded were: pupae number, adults emerged, percentage of emergence and sex ratio. Results in no-choice experiment showed that no significant difference (F=2.76, df=2, P>0.05) of the puparia recovery among the three ripening stages. However, number of pupae was recovered highest from fully-ripe fruits (27.60??8.87 pupae) followed by ripe (18.20??7.59 pupae) and unripe fruits (4.60+3.03 pupae). The following parameters; adult emergence, percentage of adult emergence, and male and female emergence also showed no significant difference (P>0.05) among the stages. In choice experiment, the results were recorded similar with no-choice experiments which there were no significance different (F=0.35, df=2, P>0.05) of the pupae number among the three ripening stages but more pupae were recovered in fully-ripe fruits (35.8??28.5 pupae) compared to ripe (28.0??16.9 pupae) and unripe fruits (13.2??5.54 pupae). The adult emergence, percentage of adult emergence, and male and female emergence also showed no significant difference (P>0.05) among the different three ripening stages.