Abstract

Pomegranate trees are susceptible to many pests. Marketing quality of pomegranate fruits is mainly affected by the citrus mealybug, Planococcus citri; Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata and pomegranate butterfly, Deudorix (Virachola) livia. This study aimed to determine successful management strategies for these three fruit damaging pests of pomegranates. Studies were conducted during 2011 to 2012 in 21 pomegranate orchards. Total 225 Wonderful cultivar trees were selected from each orchard as a replication for each treatment. Three replications were used for each treatment and all fruits of 75 randomly selected trees were collected. Results of the experiments suggest that contact insecticides have less efficiency than the systematic insecticides against P. citri. Fruit thinning (leaving only one fruit on each spurs) in combination with Spritetramat were found to be the most effective management strategy against P. citri. Results also showed that attract-and-kill traps are effective control tools against C. capitata. The two years study suggested that 30 traps ha^-1 are sufficient for the control of C. capitata. Indoxacarb was found to be the most effective active ingredient in controlling D. livia by reducing the damages from 15% to < 2% with at least two applications.

Key words: Planococcus citri, Ceratitis capitata, Deudorix (Virachola) livia, Insecticides, Spinosad, attract-and-kill traps.