Evaluación Y Descripción Del Daño Ocasionado Por Ceratitis Capitata Al Café

This work was developed in Tangua, Nariño, with the objetive to evaluate the damage and to determine the time when Ceratitis capitata attacks the coffee berry. Tangua enviromental 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 oviposite. The total economic reduction by the Mediterreanean 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.