Agriculture department: Tackling fruit fly menace

MULTAN: The fruit and vegetable section of the agriculture department is working on managing fruit fly through non-conventional ways, with the objective to improve the quality of fruits and save farmers from economic losses, said Fruit and Vegetable Deputy Director Nazeer Bhatti. He said that the fruit and vegetable section installed special traps containing methyl eugenol and protein hydrolysate to control fruit flies in mango, guava and citrus orchards. The department collected the data of flies on a weekly basis to evaluate the utility of the project. Talking about the expenses of these traps, the deputy director informed that Agriculture Extension and Fruit & Vegetable section were bearing the cost jointly. Bhatti said that losses have decreased remarkably to 4 to 5%, as compared to 40 to 80% observed in previous years at these orchards.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2016.

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