ARTICLE IN PRESS

Crop Protection 23 (2004) 6163

Short communication

Economic evaluation of the integrated management of the oriental fruit y Bactrocera dorsalis (Diptera: Tephritidae) in mango in India
Abraham Verghesea,*, P.L. Tandona, John M. Stonehouseb
a

Division of Entomology and Nematology, Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Hesseraghatta Lake P.O., Bangalore 560 089, India b Imperial College London, Royal School of Mines, London SW7 2BP, UK Received 2 January 2002; received in revised form 27 February 2003; accepted 4 April 2003

Abstract Bactrocera dorsalis is a serious pest of mangoes in India. Between 1985 and 1996 assessments of the effectiveness of a locally recommended IPM package, in comparison with no control, on a susceptible variety were carried out near Bangalore. The IPM package was applied over the 45 days before harvest and comprised (1) weekly removals of fallen fruit, (2) 3-weekly inter-tree ploughing and raking and (3) three fortnightly cover sprays of insecticide. Infestation reductions attributable to the package were between 77% and 100% in different years. Cost-benet returns were dependent on the level of pest pressure, and in years of low pressure the package may not recover its costs, necessitating a threshold approach. r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Bactrocera dorsalis; Fruit y; IPM; Mango; India; Cost-benet analysis

1. Introduction The Oriental Fruit Fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae), is a major pest of mangoes in India, particularly the more commercially valuable varieties (Verghese et al., 2003). The insect is distributed throughout India; in the North it overwinters in pupal dormancy but in the South it is active throughout the year (Butani, 1979) and as a consequence damage in the South is particularly severe. Attack can be reduced by the collection and destruction of infested fruits, by sprays of contact insecticides (Narayanan and Batra, 1960) and by the destruction of pupae in the soil by inter-tree ploughing and raking, by physical destruction or enhanced vulnerability to ant, staphylinid and carabid predators (Sivinski, 1996). In India the collection of fallen fruits for pickling is a common practice, though infrequently sufciently thorough to affect y populations, and there are hopes for the extension of the practice for orchard sanitation. As adult fruit ies can reinvade an orchard practising sanitation from unclean areas outside, attempts to quantify the benet of sanitation have been unsuccessful.
*Corresponding author. E-mail address: avergis@iihr.kar.nic.in (A. Verghese). 0261-2194/03/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0261-2194(03)00087-5

The Fruit Entomology Laboratory of IIHR has developed an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) package for the management of B. dorsalis on mango in South India. It comprises (1) orchard sanitation by weekly removal of fallen fruit, (2) 3-weekly inter-tree ploughing and raking and (3) fortnightly cover sprays of insecticide (Verghese et al., 2003). This study aimed to assess the economic performance of this package. Like many crop pests, fruit ies vary between years in the severity of their attacks. In such cases, control by the application of a threshold rule may be the economic optimum (Mumford and Norton, 1984). Threshold controls are uneconomic, if the returns to controls are less than their costs, when pest attack is light. Thus, an important question is whether these returns are positive in years of light attackif so, controls may be applied routinely and prophylactically; if not, then a programme of supervised control to thresholds may be the better course.

2. Materials and methods The study was carried out in the research orchards of IIHR outside Bangalore (12 580 N; 77 350 E). An initial study of 11 unprotected mango varieties, carried out in

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1985 and 1986, found that the two most attacked varieties were Banganpalli and Totapuri, with respective mean infestations of 46% and 59%, and the two least attacked were Dushehari and Langra, with respective mean infestations of 2.5% and 4% (Verghese et al., 2003). Subsequently, the IPM package was assessed in a 15-year old orchard of Banganpalli. Ten trees at one end of the orchard were untreated, and 10 at the opposite end treated with the IPM package; these areas were separated by three rows of untreated buffer trees. The comparison was repeated nine times between 1987 and 1996. Fly pressure was generally strong, as the protected trees were surrounded by unprotected onesa realistic situation in India where mango trees in backyards and kitchen gardens are never sprayed. All control practices were begun 45 days prior to harvest. Orchard sanitation comprised the removal and destruction of fallen fruits at 7-day intervals (six times). Ploughing between trees, with raking in the basin below each tree, was at 21-day intervals (twice). Insecticide sprays were with a foot-operated high volume sprayer, mixed with a neutral soap (Sandovit) at 0.5 ml/l at 15day intervals (three times). Sprays were directed onto fruits and not the whole canopy, which reduced the spray volume to 56 L from about 20 L for a wholecanopy spray of a 15-year old tree. As the experimental programme progressed, the principle was established of using three different insecticides for each spray to minimise the risk of the development of resistance. In 1987, all sprays were of fenthion 0.05% (subsequently declared an insecticide for restricted use); from 1988 until 1991 all sprays were of deltamethrin 0.0028%; from 1992 until 1996 sprays were of carbaryl 0.2%, followed by deltamethrin 0.0028% and dimethoate 0.06% based on an earlier IIHR recommendation (Tandon et al., 1974), in accordance with persistence of, respectively, 7, 13 and 3 days (Awasthi, 2001).

At maturity, 50 fruits were selected at random from each of the 20 trees500 treated and 500 untreated fruitand dissected in the laboratory for the counting of y larvae.

3. Results Table 1 shows the infestation level and the number of larvae per infested fruit in each plot and each year. Infestation levels (assessed by two-way analysis of variance after arcsine transformation to normalise percentages) varied signicantly between treatments (F 62:01701; 8 ) though not among years (F 1:16528; 8 ns). The mean number of larvae per infested fruit varied signicantly among years (F 6:59717; 7) though not between treatments (F 3:03391; 8 ns). The number of larvae per infested fruit was not signicantly associated with the y attack pressure, as given by the percentage infestation in the untreated plot (for treated fruit Spearman rs 0:0174 ns, for untreated fruit rs 0:0952 ns). The protection inferred to be provided by the IPM package was as a reduction of between 76.7% and 100% of fruit infested. Fly attack pressure was not signicantly associated with the inferred level of protection (rs 0:3 ns) but was with net benets (rs 0:96667 ). This relationship was quantied by least-squares regression and tted a straight line better than with either or both values converted to natural logarithms; the relationship was used to estimate the minimum level of y attack pressure at which the IPM package repaid its costs, calculated using a range of hypothetical prices. Protability depended on the ratio of the value of the mango harvest to the cost of the control package, both expressed in abstract monetary units per abstract eld area. When this ratio was 15 to one net returns to

Table 1 Outcomes of the implementation of the IPM package for protection of mango against fruit ies, Bangalore Year Per cent infestation IPM 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1996 Mean Variance 6.0 5.6 1.2 0.4 6.0 2.0 0.0 7.0 3.0 3.5 7.3 Untreated 42.9 31.3 11.1 31.6 26.0 22.0 38.0 30.0 16.0 27.6 102.1 Larvae/infested fruit IPM 19.7 42.5 33.3 9.1 11.7 2.0 18.4 18.3 17.2 191.6 Untreated 21.9 43.4 34.0 16.7 20.9 20.0 23.4 33.0 8.6 24.7 109.5 86.0 82.1 89.2 98.6 76.9 90.9 100.0 76.7 81.3 86.9 73.7 2685 1573 10 2111 1000 1000 2800 1300 300 14178 958996 % Inferred reduction Economic return

Note: Given for each year are the percentage infestation and the mean number of larvae per infested fruit, for both unprotected and IPM treated plots, the inferred percentage reduction in y attack attributed to the IPM package, and the net economic returns to controls, assuming control costs of 1000 and a value of an entire unattacked mango crop of 10,000.

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control averaged 8.8, and in none of the years did the package show a negative return. When the ratio was 10, the average control return was 7.1 and the package showed a loss in 1 year (1989); however, when the ratio was ve the average return was 2.1 and the package showed a loss in 2 years (1989, 1996). Net returns over years did not signicantly depart from a normal distribution (KolmogorovSmirnov g 0:068 ns).

experimentation assistance and two anonymous referees at Crop Protection for advice.

References
Awasthi, M.D., 2001. Pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables. In: Reddy, P.P., Verghese, A., Krishna Kumar, N.K. (Eds.), Integrated Pest Management in Horticultural Ecosystems. Capital Publishing Company, New Delhi, pp. 263278. Butani, D.K., 1979. Insects and Fruits. Periodical Export Book Agency, New Delhi, 415pp. Mumford, J.M., Norton, G.A., 1984. Economics of decision making in pest management. Ann. Rev. Entomol. 29, 157174. Narayanan, E.S., Batra, H.N., 1960. Fruit Flies and Their Control. Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, 68pp. Sivinski, J., 1996. The past and potential of biological control of fruit ies. In: McPheron, A., Steck, G.J. (Eds.), Fruit Fly Pests. St. Lucie Press, Florida, USA, pp. 369375. Tandon, P.L., Mathur, A.C., Krishnaiah, K., 1974. Chemical control of mango fruit y, Dacus dorsalis Hendel. Prog. Hortic. (Ranikhet) 6, 113. Verghese, A., 1998. Domestic and export markets: a case study of challenges in IPM of mango. In: Reddy, P.P., Krishna Kumar, N.K., Verghese, A. (Eds.), Proceedings of the First National Symposium on Pest Management in Horticulture Crops. Association for Advancement of Pest Management in Horticultural Ecosystems, Bangalore, pp. 39. Verghese, A., Madhura, H.S., Kamala Jayanthi, P.D., Stonehouse, J.M., 2003. Fruit ies of economic signicance in India with special reference to Bactrocera dorsalis Hendel. In: Barnes, B., Addison, M. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on Fruit Flies of Economic Importance, 610 May 2002, Stellenbosch, South Africa, in press.

4. Discussion The IPM package obtained good y control at many levels of y attack pressure. Below a certain level, however, control may not show a net return, so there is scope for the application of controls according to a threshold rule. In future the IPM package may be further developed by the incorporation of male annihilation through methyl eugenol trapping, food baits and/ or the replacement of synthetic pesticides with neem and other botanical ingredients with economic and environmental advantages (Verghese, 1998).

Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the Director of IIHR for the provision of facilities, Mr. B.B. Bopaiah and Mr. S. Hanumantharayappa for orchard maintenance and