Make sure flies don’t resist treatments
Alternating fly control options applied to manure heaps that harbour fly eggs and larvae this summer will be vital to combat growing concerns of resistance.
That's the advice from Certis' pest control specialist Helen Ainsworth who says that with recent product revocations, relying on fewer fly treatment options will increase the risk of pests building up resistance to treatments. "This could reduce the number of effective control agents even further and a number of livestock farms have already been reporting reduced efficacy from existing fly control programmes.
"The solution is a planned strategy that includes different types of control. Knockdown of adult populations with aerial sprays is only part of the solution," she says.
"Flies spend between 1 and 8 weeks of their lifecycle as eggs or maggots depending on the time of year, thriving anywhere that organic waste is present. "Manure heaps represent ideal fly breeding grounds," she warns. Targeting these areas will deliver control by breaking the breeding cycle.
Helen points out that growth regulating insecticides that target eggs and larvae will have an increasingly important role, both in managing resistance and as a solution with an improved environmental profile compared to some other treatments.
"Applied directly to the surface of organic matter, Dimilin is active against eggs and the developing larvae, and is used worldwide for the control of flies, mosquitos and other dipterous pests. Dimilin provides a new approach to breaking the fly lifecycle and has no cross resistance to existing treatments," she says.
"As an insect growth regulator, the way it acts on the pest is different to conventional neurotoxic insecticides. In addition, there is also no known resistance to Dimilin, but best practice demands that it is used as part of a programme, with repetitive treatments of any one product avoided."
Applied with a knapsack or boom sprayer, control with Dimilin will be achieved within 2-3 weeks when used in a programme.
For Certis fly control in animal housing is a new departure, but they can even offer solutions for fly control for organic producers.
