Abstract

The peach fruit fly Bactrocera zonata (Saunders) is a serious pest of different fruits and vegetables in Pakistan inflicting economical damages. A laboratory experiment was conducted to determine the oviposition preference of the peach fruit fly for different fruits including guava, banana, citrus, ber, chikoo and apple under free or no choice conditions. Results showed that the guava was the most preferred host with mean pupal recovery of 318.00 ± 4.61 pupa/fruit (p/f) under free choice and 434 ± 2.64 p/f under no choice conditions, followed by banana (266.00 ± 4.5 p/f) in free choice and ber (177.00 ± 2.08 p/f) in no choice experiment. Whereas, apple and citrus were least preferred hosts.

Key words: Bactrocera zonata, host preference, oviposition.