The Knight Stick Trap and Knight Stick Sticky Wraps: New Tools for Stable Fly (Diptera: Muscidae) Management.

Stable fly, Stomoxys calcitrans (L.) (Diptera: Muscidae), management can be difficult, especially in situations where pesticide usage is restricted or disallowed. Traps have been used for monitoring stable flies, but have rarely been used for management. The Knight Stick (KS) trap recently became available, and preliminary studies indicated that it might be an improvement to traps currently in use. The Olson Sticky Fly trap was chosen as the control trap for the purpose of comparisons. Both traps attract stable flies by alteration of light waves and capture flies on a sticky wrap covering the trap base. The KS trap captured 3× more stable flies than the Olson trap, whereas the Olson trap base covered with the KS Sticky wrap captured 3-5× more stable flies than the Olson trap base with the standard Olson Sticky wrap. This indicated inherent attraction from the KS Sticky wrap. This was supported when KS Tank wraps, a larger version of the KS Sticky wraps, applied to 51 kg of liquid propane (LP) tanks on Mosquito Magnet Independence traps producing CO2, captured significantly more stable flies and significantly more stable flies per square centimeter of sticky wrap than Olson Sticky Sleeve wraps applied to the LP tanks. In a final study, when two configurations of KS Tank wraps were applied to white plastic barrels and compared with three standard KS traps, mean numbers of stable flies captured were numerically similar. The significance of findings and potential uses for the traps are discussed.