Mexican fruit fly

Lysine, reported to be a mosquito attractant (23, 24), has shown attraction for the Mexican fruit fly [Anestrepha ludens (Loew)], the... 

Some forms of pest resistance involve. hanging the pest rather than the host plant. The best example of autocidal resistance is the sterile male technique used to control. nsects. Scientists rear thousands of males of a particular insect species under controlled conditions, then sterilize them with x-rays. These sterilized males are released in the wild to mate with females of the same species. Since the males are sterile, mated females do not produce eggs, causing populations to drop drastically over time. (The technique is restricted to insect species with females that only mate once.) This method is most successful when the sterile males compete aggressively with the natural population of fertile males. A working example of autocidal resistance occurs at the border of Mexico and California, where sterile males of the Mexican fruit fly are released to help control populations and to prevent the pests from entering California. 

ITsecond point suggested by the Table is the fact that where there are many favorable frequencies in the pattern, a randomly selected candidate is likely to have at least one that will approximately match one element of the pattern. This is no doubt the reason why 25.3% of the 2577 compounds tested by the U.S.D.A. attracted the medfly which has a seven element pattern. This contrasts with the fact that of 2618 compounds tested as attractants for the Mexican fruit fly, only 7.8% were effective (9). For this insect the Peak Number Plot shows only three favorable frequencies which makes it less probable that any given chemical will attract. 

A preliminary survey has been carried out to see whether Mexican fruit fly infestation present along the Califomia-Mexico border can be controlled by the sustained release of sterile flies. It was thought that this would be more economic than the present method of quarantine survey and insecticide spraying currently costing approximately 100,000/year. 

Only estimates of the numbers of compounds tested as chemosterilants can be offered. Since 1955, when insect sterility acquired a certain economic potential, close to 10,000 compounds have been screened in various USDA laboratories, primarily in house flies, screwworms, Mexican fruit flies Anastrepha ludens Loew), and boll weevils Anthonomus grandis Bohe-man). Some 600 of these compounds had more or less pronounced streiliz-ing effects, and many were further tested in over 100 species of insects and other organisms. Possibly thousands of additional compounds were screened in other laboratories here and abroad, but an exact count of the active and inactive compounds has not been made. By the end of 1972, more than 1000 insect chemosterilants were described in the scientific literature. This number is more than twice that listed in a survey published by Borkovec (1966). 

Iediterranean and Mexican fruit flies are formidable pests that have the potential to seriously damage several important fruit crops. Because of this, there have been several widely publicized sprayings of residential areas in southern California with the pesticide malathion to try to control fruit flies. Now there may be a better way to kill fruit flies—with a blend of two common dyes (red dye no. 28 and yellow dye no. 8) long used to color drugs and cosmetics. One of the most interesting things about this new pesticide is that it... 

The edible parts of parsnips (Pastimea sativa L.), which have been consumed for centuries by humans without causing any obvious harm, were found to contain a chemical of insecticidal and strong synergistic nature (1). The insecticidal constituent, present at about 200 p.p.m., was isolated and identified as 5-allyl-l-methoxy-2, 3-methylenedioxybenzene or myristicin. Its toxicity to various insects [vinegar flies, houseflies, Mediterranean fruit flies, mosquito larvae, Mexican bean beetles, and pea aphids] was established and compared with pyrethrum and aldrin (Tables I and II). The knockdown effect, although definite, was not as great as that of pyrethrum. In tests... 

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