Insect Trap Saves Crops
FrontLines - July 2009
Like many farmers in Bangladesh, Nazrul Islam Khan, from the western district of Jessore, grows cucurbits, plants from the gourd family that include cucumbers and melons. For many years, he and his neighbors suffered great losses due to the melon fly (Bactrocera cucurbitae), an insect that decimates
cucurbit crops.
But after scientists from a USAID-funded program taught him how to use pheromone traps, Nazrul made a profit. “We call it the ‘magic trap’ because it magically traps fruit flies,” he said, referring to a recycled plastic bottle containing
water, a small amount of pesticide, and a capsule of cuelure. Cuelure is a chemical compound that mimics female melon fly sex pheromones. When the trap is placed in a field of melons, “it works wonders,” Nazrul said. “Insects flock to the bottle to drown.”
Scientists working with the USAID program demonstrated that the pheromone trap can catch 5 to 18 times as many flies as the original trap using mashed gourd instead of cuelure.
Eliminating hundreds of flies daily, the traps reduce the cost of pest control, since farmers no longer apply pesticides
so often and their yields increase. When farmers use cuelure traps together with mashed gourd traps, their net returns can more than triple.
Today, thousands of cucurbit growers in Bangladesh have adopted the use of cuelure to manage melon flies. In Jessore alone more than 90 percent of the farmers are now using the “magic trap.” .
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