[01] Muhammad Sarwar, Nuclear Institute for Agriculture & Biology (NIAB), Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.

The goal of this paper is to show that the precise genetic components that determine competence in a broad sense or fitness in the narrower ecological sense are extremely economical and more important for pest fruit flies control. The true fruit flies (Tephritidae) are the question of quarantine and control efforts as a consequence of their extensive agricultural impact and large range of expansions worldwide. Among these flies, the pests that infest fruits, squashes and other cucurbitaceous plants result in heavy crop damage and subsequent monetary losses. Of these species, flies mainly belonging to the genus Bactrocera are Bactrocera zonata (Saunders), Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) and Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coquillett) having a higher detections frequency, broader host range, and pose a greater economic loss to agriculture than other fruit fly species. The increased frequency of travel and trade in recent years has resulted in increased detection of non-native and invasive pests. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is an environment friendly and species-specific method of pest control based on the release of large numbers of sterilized insects. The increased introduction rate of these pests, the development of resistance by the pests to conventional chemical control measures, and the commitment to develop and use alternative integrated pest management (IPM) measures have made the effective use of sterile insect technique. Some of the techniques developed in molecular genetics that may be useful in autocidal control programs for fly insect pests include, molecular biology and transgenesis, genetically modified release of insects carrying a dominant lethal, and genetic sexing technique. Developing and implementing an integrated pest management program is highly requested to minimize the use of chemical pesticides to overcome these above mentioned problems and produce fruit fly-free and residue-free fruit and vegetable to facilitate compliance with standards required for export markets.

Bioinvasion, Autocidal Control, Insect Transgenics, Fruit Files, Irradiation

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