Efficacy of the Lufenuron Bait Station Technique to Control ... - Iresa

Lufenuron effect on puncturingfruit damage. The impact of thetreatments on the percentage of puncturedfruits was assessed during three years ofthe study (Table 1). During the year 2005,total means punctured fruits oscillatedbetween 82.75 and 93.3 respectively in thetreated and control fields (31.25 at thebeginning and 121 at the end of the trial inthe treated field against 36 and 134 in thecontrol area). No statistical differenceswere obtained. The effect of the baitstation technique is thus comparable to theconventional farmer’s treatment.Table 1. Mean punctured fruits at the beginning and the end of the trial and the overall mean of punctured fruits during2005, 2006, and 2007*Year 2005TreatedControlP valueYear 2006TreatedControlP valueYear 2007Field 1TreatedControlP valueField 2TreatedControlP valueField 3TreatedControlP valueMean of punctured fruits at thebeginning of the trial31.25 a36 a0.36241.75 b18.75 a0.0350.5 a0 a0.362.25 b0 a0.040.5 a0 a0.14Mean of punctured fruits at theend of the trial121 a134 a0.629.5 b9.5 a0.057.25 a12.5 a0.0631.25 b9.74 a0.0045.5 a7.5 a0.11Overall mean ofpunctured fruits82.75 a93.3 a0.36719.28 b9.40 a0.00073 a4.03 a0.3310.08 b3.06 a0.00012.36 a2.75 a0.59* Within columns, means followed by the same letters are not significantly different (P=0.05) according to StudentTest.Lufenuron effect on the percentageof damaged fruits. Results shown in Fig.6 revealed that the percentage of puncturedfruit is comparable between the treated andcontrol field each year despite the littledifferences observed during the first andthe last year (field 3). Indeed, for the year2005, the percentage of punctured fruitwas 42.9% in the treated field against51.1% in the control area. Furthermore,during the year 2007, we observed 9.68%of fruit damage in the treated area against13.14% in the control plot.The statistical analyses of data duringthe three years (Student Test at P < 0.05)showed no significant differences in thepercentages of punctured fruits betweenthe treated and the control areas except forthe years 2005 and 2007 (field 3).Moreover, in the treated field, significantdifferences in the percentage of fruitpunctures were obtained between the firstand last year of the trial. Simultaneously,decreases of fruit punctures were observedin the control field (Fig. 6).Tunisian Journal of Plant Protection 41Vol. 3, No. 1, 2008