Bureau Chief: Dr. Trevor Smith, Trevor.Smith@freshfromflorida.com |
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Caribbean Fruit Fly Rearing
Biological Scientist: Michael Banaszek Michael.Banaszek@freshfromflorida.com
Project Staff
Kurtis Brutton
Piyachai Chaiboonruang
David Davis
Cynthia Brownfield
Millions of Caribbean fruit flies are needed weekly for colony maintenance, parasitoid rearing and research needs, including Sterile Insect Technique. The facility rearing areas are divided according to life cycle, each stage having different environmental requirements. Many of the rearing techniques originated from other tephritid facilities and adapted for the Caribbean fruit fly. Egg bubbling and subsequent extruding onto the diet is a recent improvement, developed in 2002. The eggs are washed off the cage oviposition panels, rinsed in sodium benzoate solution, mixed with furcelleron solution and bubbled for 3 days in an incubator at 76°F. The eggs are extruded onto the larval diet.
 Egg Collection |
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 Egg Bubbling |
 Calibrating Extruder |
 Infesting Diet |
The larvae develop in the diet trays at 80°F for 5 days. The temperature of the diet is monitored to ensure that it doesn’t overheat. When the diet temperature reaches 95°F, the larvae are moved to a 70°F room, where they continue to develop until they are ready to pupate between days 6-9. They migrate from the diet to pans of vermiculite attached to the bottom of the stacks. The larvae and the vermiculite is collected and placed into trays to pupate. Eight days later they are sifted from the vermiculite for use in the colony or are irradiated for shipment.
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