Population suppression in the Queensland fruit fly, Dacus (Strumeta) Tryoni. II. Experiments on isolated populations in Western New South Wales

Abstract

This is the second paper in a series describing experiments designed to investigate the potential usefulness of chemical lures for the suppression of isolated populations of the Queensland fruit fly. The experiments reported here were done in two consecutive years and involved 12 country towns in central and north-central New South Wales. Three of the towns were treated with a male-attractant plus an insecticide; three were treated with a general lure plus an insecticide; three others received a combination of both treatments; and the remaining three were left untreated for comparison.

In the first year neither single treatment had any significant effects on the populations, while the double treatment achieved an acceptable level of control. In the second year the performances of both single treatments improved greatly, while the combined treatment gave excellent control. It is shown that isolated populations of fruit fly can be suppressed by these means.

The implications of these results for future large-scale control of the Queensland fruit fly are discussed briefly. More complete discussion must await publication of further developments of this work, which will be reported in later papers in this series.