Modified Agar-Based Diet for Small Scale Laboratory Rearing of Olive Fruit Fly, Bactrocera Oleae (Diptera: Tephritidae) (Report‪)‬

The olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae Gmelin, is the most important and widespread pest in olive growing countries in the Mediterranean basin (Economopoulos 2002). Control of this pest has been based on organophosphate insecticides for many decades, but their intensive use has lead to development of enzyme (acetylcholinesterase (AChE)) resistance due to the selection of 2 resistance mutations (I199V and G488S) (Vontas et al. 2002). The sterile insect technique (SIT) is one of the most promising control approaches for the future of fruit fly integrated management (Enkerlin & Mumford 1997; Hendrichs et al. 2002). A primary requirement for success of SIT of olive fruit flies is mass rearing of the flies on a larval diet of high efficiency and low cost. Olive fruit flies cannot be reared on a completely defined synthetic diet because detailed nutritional information is lacking, but several artificial diets have been developed for rearing the flies. The first artificial diet developed by Hagen et al. (1963) for the olive fruit fly was based on dehydrated carrot powder and brewer's yeast. This diet was used successfully for rearing more than 3 generations. Later, several artificial diets were reported as satisfactory for continuous rearing of the olive fly (Tzanakakis et al. 1966; Tzanakakis & Economopoulos 1967; Rey 1969; Tzanakakis et al. 1970; Mittler & Tsitsipis 1973; Tsitsipis 1975; Tsitisipis & Kontos 1983).