MULTAN, Oct 14: The regional horticulture department has submitted its recommendations to the Punjab government for setting up a biological control laboratory at Multan to prepare predators — the mango-friendly pests — to save the fruit from fruit fly.

Horticulturist Khalid Mehmood Chaudhry, who is running the mango segment of fruit and vegetable development programme (FVDP) in Multan and Rahim Yar Khan, said on Saturday that they were sending fruit fly pupas to the Centre for Applied Biology International (Cabi), Rawalpindi, to prepare predators which would be utilised to kill the fruit fly, a major problem marring the mango export to lucrative foreign markets.

The expert said the predator that had been identified as mango-friendly for being the enemy of fruit fly entered into the larva of fruit fly as parasite, laid eggs, which remained there as parasitoid and came out as complete predator killing the fruit fly at the larva stage.

“We can also do it on our own and that is why I have recommended that a biological control laboratory be set up in Multan so we can serve farmers at their doorstep”, he said. “We may be able to have the initial set up next year”, the official hoped.

In addition to this approach, he said the FVDP was also pursuing another programme simultaneously to tackle fruit fly problem and experiments showed they were able to bring down incidence of fruit fly in mango from 31 per cent to just 0.4 per cent.

He said three techniques were applied at as many 150-acre orchards separately but simultaneously including male annihilation programme, another technique to kill female fruit fly and mangos’ exposure to sunlight and they all showed fruitful results.

“We will replicate this technique at orchards spread over 1,000 acre area each in Multan and RY Khan next year”, he said adding that Pakistani mango would become free from fruit fly once the farmers started applying techniques evolved so far.—APP