Distribution and Infestation Rate of Carpomya Incompleta on Sider Fruit (Ziziphus Spina-Christi L.) in Jazan Province Saudia Arabia

Abstract

In the Middle East, people used the fruit and leaves of Sider or Ber (Ziziphus ‎‎spina-christi L.) as food and in traditional medicine. Out of 26 sites surveyed, it was found that Carpomya incompleta was the dominant insect in all surveyed sites that separated from fruits in trees and fallen. In only two locations, a type of weevil was recorded on fallen fruits in a minimal number (in Khawarah, Sabia), and a different kind of Lepidoptera was recorded in (Mokhtara, Samtah) in a limited number. However, the various sites recorded Braconid wasps (parasitoids used in biological control) at the end of the fruiting season. The results pointed to no more than one larva of C. ‎incompleta recorded inside the infested fruit, and no cocoons were ‎detected inside the ‎examined fruits. The infested fruits varied from 5 to 32% in the fruits in the investigated trees; meanwhile, it reached 4 to 80% in the fallen fruits. While the seasonal abundance was represented, a single peak of infestation occurred at the end of the fruiting season with late spring. The study introduced the surveyed sider plantations to investigate the distribution and fluctuations of the most dominant insects. It also evaluated insect infestations and their causes to determine the causes of economic losses in their fruiting yield in Jazan Province, Saudi Arabia.