Evaluation and description of the damage caused by Ceratitis capitafa to coffee

Abstract

This work was developed in Tangua, Nariño,  with the objective to evaluate the damage and to determine the time when Ceratitis capitata attacks the coffee berry. Tangua environmental conditions are: temperature: 21-22 °C; relative humidity 77,79% and annual precipitation 1,044 mm. The Mediterranean fruit fly attacks the coffee berry in all the developmental phases. At the harvest time, the larvae have consumed almost all the pulp, leaving free the grains into the husk, which in the dry season adheres to the endoderm or rots in the rainy season. It was detected that this pest causes detriment of the coffee quality, mainly in those coffee trees were the attack occurs in the early ripeness phases. These phases and the com­plete ripeness phase, in the low third of the tree, are the main phases preferred by the fly to oviposit. The total economic reduction by the Mediterranean fruit fly in coffee is 20,52%; 5,2% is caused by the premature fall of berries, 15,32% by loss in the dry grain weight, when the infestation is about 12,23%. The larger infestation was found in the treat­ments of ripe berry, half-ripe berry and con­trol, and the highest losses in the treatments of green berry, half-ripe berry and control.