Evaluation of liquid artificial larval diets for mass rearing of Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coq.)

As a step towards increase production efficiency and quality over the storage, handling, and waste challenges of bulking agents in traditionally based ‘solid’ diets, a liquid diet with synthetic sponge cloths has been developed for mass rearing of Melon fly, Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coq.) under laboratory condition. Several quantities of Brewer’s yeast (8.62, 11.51, 14.38 and 17.25%), and sugar (4.47, 5.96, 7.45 and 8.94%) were tested in liquid larval medium with or without wheat germ oil (WGO). The diets were assessed in terms of pupal yield (%), larval duration (days), pupal weight (gm), percent of adult emergence, active fliers, sex ratio, fecundity, and fertility. Among the different diets tested, larval rearing of B. cucurbitae on a liquid diet (LD-I) with 14.2g of brewer’s yeast, 7.35g of sugar and wheat germ oil found most suitable. This diet resulted in significantly higher pupal weight with maximum adult emergence (81.00%) and fliers (85.58%). The addition of wheat germ oil to liquid diet increase fertility by 39% and egg hatching by 15%, over the control diet. The diet supplemented with linolenic acid (LD-II) resulted in the 68.85% pupal recovery with 78.33% adult emergence and 81.68% fliers. Although, pupal recovery and weight increased with the increase of brewer’s yeast but resulted in the low adult emergence and poor fliers. In the present study, the quality parameters of melon fly reared in LD-I was found close to the recommended pre-irradiation standards of FAO/IAEA/USDA for sterilization of male flies.

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