بررسی مناسب ترین گیاه به عنوان استراحتگاه مگس جالیز Dacus ciliatus Loew و انتخاب آن برای طعمه مسموم پاشی

Lesser Pumpkin Fly, Dacus ciliates (Loew) is one of the most injurious insects to cucurbit crops. It causes significant damage to melon, cucumber, watermelon, and squash in all vegetable production of Iran. To evaluate the effect of roosting host plants along with bait application on the pest damage reduction, an investigation was conducted on two different planting dates including spring (March) and autumn (September) cucumber cultures. The experiment was designed in a factorial plan based on a randomized complete block design with three replications. The first factor was bait application (with and without), and the second factor was roosting plants (castor, corn, sorghum, and sunflower). The roosting hosts were planted on two sides of each cucumber plot. Bait application of roosting hosts was treated by spraying Malathion EC 57% at the rate of 2.5 ml per 1000 mlwater + Protein Hydrolysate 20% at the rate of 20 ml per 1000 ml water from flowering to the end of harvesting every week. The results showed that the attractiveness of plants for the pest increased after bait application. The result of bait application in the autumn planting date was not promising, however, in the spring culture, the damaged fruits by flies in the treated plots (25.4%) were much lower than the non-treated plot (45%). Moreover, there were significant differences between roosting plants in bait application treatment regarding pest damage. Castor with 48.2 percent had the highest effect in reducing the damage of flies followed by corn, sunflower, and sorghum with 41.2, 36.4, and 36.2 percent, respectively. The overall assessments showed that the weekly bait application of roosting plant could reduce the damage of lesser pumpkin fly by 45-60% without any pesticides application in the field, however, for the best result, using other methods such as 1-2 times bait application throughout the field is necessary.