Fishing for flies: testing the efficacy of “stink stations” for promoting blow flies as pollinators in mango orchards

By Finch et al.

Blow fly on mango flower

Blow flies are known to visit a variety of economically important fruit trees. Some fruit growers are known to place carrion on farms during the flowering season to attract blow flies into orchards. However, the efficacy of these “stink stations” has not been tested. We conducted a series of experiments to determine if stink stations promote blow flies and fruit set in mango orchards. Farms with stink stations had approximately three times more flies than control farms. However, the increased abundance of blow flies did not result in higher fruit set. This may because the mango flowers were sufficiently visited by a highly abundant and ubiquitous native hover fly during our study. As such, there was no added benefit from the presence of the stink stations. We hypothesize that stink stations may only be beneficial in years or regions where other pollinators are less abundant. 

 

Read the scientific pulbication in JPE