Effects of bait age and prior protein feeding on cumulative time-dependent mortality of Anastrepha ludens (Diptera: Tephritidae) exposed to GF-120 spinosad baits.

A fruit fly bait to attract and kill adult fruit flies, GF-120, was tested in cages to determine effects of pretreatment diet and bait aging before use on cumulative mortality rates of Mexican fruit fly, Anastrepha ludens (Loew) (Diptera: Tephritidae). Protein-starved and protein-fed, 9-d-old flies both experienced varying overall cumulative mortality at 4, 8, 24, and 48 h. Pretreatment diet had no significant effect on mortality. Overall mortality rates were below 10% for 4 h, 39-43% at 8 h, but mortality in all treatments increased to 89-93% by 24 h, and 99% by 48 h. In a second experiment, GF-120 baits were either freshly prepared or aged for 24 h. Subtreatments consisted of protein-fed and protein-starved flies. The 24-h-aged bait killed significantly more flies at 4 and 8 h than the freshly prepared bait. Protein-starved flies had significantly higher mortality at 4 h and marginally higher mortality at 8 h than protein-fed flies. At 24 and 48 h, there were no significant differences among treatments, and overall morality rose to 99-100% by 48 h. These results may explain differences noted in previous publications in which fruit fly mortality to GF-120 was reported as unusually low as well as reports of bait ineffectiveness for protein-fed flies. The overall impact of any initial repellency of GF-120 seems negligible as judged by overall cumulative mortality at later evaluation times.