U.S. Department of Agriculture: Agricultural Research Service, Lincoln, Nebraska
ORCID IDs
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6854-7553
Date of this Version
2-7-2019
Citation
Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract
House fly (Musca domestica) control is a major challenge in animal agriculture. Here, we tested the feasibility of applying pyriproxyfen (PPF), an insect-growth regulator that controls house flies effectively, using autodissemination methods, in which the flies themselves deliver PPF to their oviposition sites. First, we tried baiting gravid female flies to walk-through stations, where flies would self-treat with PPF and distribute it. This concept worked well in laboratory and indoor cage experiments, but not in the field, as flies appeared reluctant to alight on and collect PPF. Therefore, we tested a different concept of actively coating flies with PPF and then releasing them in different proportions. This concept was tested in laboratory experiments with various manure types in the USA and in Israel. Twenty percent of PPF-coated flies (corresponding to ≥ 2.3 mg/kg PPF) were sufficient to get high control levels (~ 90%) in most of the tested manure types in the US study. Very similar results were obtained in the experiments in Israel but only with poultry manure, whereas low control levels were obtained when cow manure was used. We conclude that autodissemination of PPF using the collect–treat–release “active coating” concept may be practical, depending on manure type, and should be further tested in the field.
Comments
Journal of Pest Science (2019) 92:1283–1292 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-019-01092-x