Land application is often a routine part of manure management. Not only is it a practical means of disposing large amounts of poultry wastes, it is an efficient use of an organic fertilizer. Unfortunately, poultry manure may contain a large number of house fly larvae and pupae that can become a nuisance if they complete development. Mechanical incorporation of poultry manure is often recommended to help reduce odor; it has also been though to reduce the potential for a fly outbreak. This study examined fly survival following burial in field soil at depths of 0, 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 in. One quarter of the adult house flies developing from pupae were able to crawl through 12 in. of soil to reach the surface. Survival of flies buried closer to the surface was greater. We compared house fly survival following disk, harrow, and moldboard plow incorporation of manure to surface application. No method of incorporation was better than the surface application. Adult flies reached outbreak proportions 10 days following application and the outbreak lasted another 11 day

Keshavarz, K.

Rutz, D. A.

Waldron, J. Keith

Watson, D. W.

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Q19WApplied Poultry Science, Inc DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM Manureman%ementkan imPortatcon- sideration in intensive animd agricdture. Whether it is mmposted, stored in a lagoon, digested, or taken directly from the facility, at some point manure is applied to the land. HOUSE FLY (h.ll[vsc=A DOMESTICA L.) Valued as organic fertilizer, poultry manure is high in calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, and nitrogen [l, 21. In 1990, broiler, layer, and turkey farms in the U.S. produced an estimated 13,078 million kg of manure, most of which was applied to the land as fertilizer [2] .  This practice has sparked SURVIVAL~TER M CHANICAL -INCORPORATION OF POULTRY MANURE INTO FIELD SOIL D. w WATSON' D e p m e n t  of Entomology, Box 7626, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695 Phone: (929) 513-2028 D. A. RUTZ Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY K. KESHAVARZ Department of Animal Science, Cornell Univemity, Ithaca, NY J. BEITH WALDRON New York State IFM, Cornell University, Geneva, NY F M .  (919) 525-7273 1 To whom correspondence should be addressed Research Report WATSON et al. 303 environmental concerns in three areas: non- point source pollution, groundwater contami- nation, and a source of human pathogens [2, 31. Of equal importance have been the nui- sance insect complaints that arise with the suburbanization of formerly rural areas [4]. Depending on the condition of the manure and the existing insect population, a pest out- break resulting from land application may be an important liability. Once a nuisance pest outbreak enters the popular press, it effec- tively creates a negative investment climate for agriculture and the community [5,6]. Recognizing the relationship between manure management and fly production, producers have used whatever means are available to control pest populations, includ- ing chemical, biological, cultural, mechanical, and integrated pest management [7,8]. Fortu- nately, pest outbreaks can be avoided with carefully planned manure and pest manage- ment. A dry, well-ventilated manure storage area is essential to managing the house fly, Musca domestica, particularly in houses de- signed to store manure beneath the cages. Manure moisture greater than 50% promotes fly growth and development. Frequently walk- ing the pit area in search of fly breeding sites and water leaks gives forewarning of potential problem areas. Knowledge of house fly life stages allows the producer to predict when problems may arise. The female house fly deposits 75-200 eggs in manure, spilled feed, and other moist, warm, decaying organic material [9]. Female flies may lay up to six batches of eggs in their lifetime. The larvae hatch from the eggs in 12-24 hr. The larvae complete development in 4-7 days, passing through three growth phases or instars as they grow. First and second instar development is usually completed in 48 hr; the third instar requires an additional 2 4  days. Mature larvae form a reddish-brown case from the larval skin, called a puparium, in which they pupate. After undergoing meta- morphosis, the adult fly emerges from the pupa after +I days. The rate of development depends upon temperature, with the least time required during the warm summer months. House flies are an important pest of the poultry industry and are frequently the cause of nuisance complaints. Poultry manure may contain a large number of fly larvae and pupae. Spreading a thin layer of poultry manure on agricultural fields encourages drying and re- duces fly development [lo]. Removing manure during cold winter months can reduce nui- sance complaints, because temperatures of 8°C (46°F) or colder retard fly development or kill fly larvae and pupae [9, 10, 111. Opera- tional demands that force the removal of ma- nure during the warmer months when insects remain active leave producers with few op- tions. .Mechanical incorporation of the ma- nure into the field soil is often recommended to help reduce odors. Although mechanical incorporation is thought to have an impact on fly survival, there is no research base to sup- port this supposition. The present study was designed to measure the survival of house flies buried in field soil and the impact of mechan- ical incorporation of poultry manure on fly survival. Our objectives were to determine the survival of house fly larvae and pupae buried in field soil at various depths, and to evaluate house fly survival following incorporation of manure into field soil using different farm equipment. MATERIALS ANDMETHODS BURIED HOUSE FLY STUDY Buried house fly survival was evaluated under summer field conditions. Experiments were conducted on deep, well-drained, medium-textured Howard Gravel Loam soil of a fallow field at the Thompson Research Farm, Freeville, NY. Laboratory-reared house flies were sorted by age into three replicated groups of 50, and placed in capped 25-cc medication vials containing 5 cc of dry wheat bran. Second and third instar larvae, as well as pupae, were buried in loose field soil at depths of 0,3,8,15,23, and 33 cm (approximately 0,1, 3,6, 9, and 12 in.). No manure was added to the soil. House fly survival was indicated by the number of adult house flies successfully emerging from the soil beneath inverted cone cylinder traps [12]. Adult fly emergence traps were placed directly over the burial site. Traps were pressed 5 cm into the soil and a bank of soil was packed against the side of the trap to prevent the flies from escaping. All emerging adult flies were removed and counted from each trap each day of inspection. Emergence traps were checked on Days 7, 10, 14, 17,21, 304 HOUSE FLY SURVIVAL 24, and 28. All flies were removed from the trap upon inspection. A subsequent experiment was designed to determine the effects of manure on the sur- vival of second instar larvae. Second instar larvae were sorted into 12 treatment groups of 50 larvae each. Treatment groups were buried in field soil as previously described, with the exception that half (6 groups) were buried without manure and remaining (6 groups) treatment groups were buried with the addi- tion of 25 cc of fresh poultry manure. This experiment was replicated twice. Larvae and larvae plus manure were buried and their sur- vival determined as described above. MANURE INCORPORATION STUDY A small poultry house containing 2500 layers was selected for this study. No insecti- cides had been used to control the rapidly growing fly population. The poultry house had recently been repopulated, and the manure depth was approximately 25 cm (10 in.). In subsequent experiments the manure depth was greater. The manure was sub-sampled with a tulip bulb planter (125 cc) at 15 ran- domly selected sites. Individual samples were placed in Burlese-tulgren funnels to extract the larvae. Larvae were collected and pre- served in 70% ethanol. The remaining manure was removed from the poultry house and loaded into a side- delivery manure spreader. Approximately 6.3m3 (224 ft3) of manure was spread on 1220 m2 (4OOO ft2 or 0.092 acres) of field at an average depth of 0.0052 m3/m2 (0.056 ft3/ft2). Spread manure was again sampled to deter- mine fly mortality incurred by the flailing ac- tion of the manure spreader. Samples were handled as described above. Treatments were assigned to 3.05 x 15.25 meter rows (10 x 50 ft) and replicated twice (Figure 1). Treatments included: control (no incorporation), harrow (15 cm depth), disk (7 cm), and moldboard plow (33 cm). Manure in harrow and disk treatments was incorpo- rated with four passes of the implement and plow treatment with one pass. Seven inverted cone cylinder traps [12] were randomly placed on each row, covering 1% of the treated sur- face area. Traps were pressed into the soil and banked to prevent fly escapes. Emergence traps were inspected on Days 7, 10, 14, 17, 21,24, and 28. Upon inspection all flies were removed from each trap and counted. Soil temperatures were recorded during the ex- perimental period. The impact of mechanical incorporation on fly survival was evaluated in three repli- cated experiments during the months of July, August, and September. Analysis of variance was used to compare house fly survival be- tween treatments. Standard error of the means was calculated from individual treatments. Data were analyzed using general linear model ~ 3 1 .  RESULTS AND DISCUSSION BURIED HOUSE FLY STUDY House fly pupae buried under 3 and 8 cm of soil successfully eclosed and emerged as adult flies. Pupae buried 15, 23, and 33 cm were less likely to survive burial (Figure 2); however, 24% of the fly pupae buried 33 cm reached the surface as adult flies. Adult house fly emergence by buried third instar larvae was greater than that of buried pupae, although emergence was delayed about 1 wk. Under natural conditions, third instar larvae are quite active, especially during the wandering phase before pupation. It is very likely that, unlike pupae, third instar larvae migrated through the soil and pupated near the soil surface, allowing the newly eclosed adult flies less travel distance to reach the soil surface. No second instar larvae survived burial in the first experiment. In the subsequent experiment, second in- star larval survival remained very low if manure was not present in the soil (Figure 3). However, the addition of manure to the burial site provided sufficient nutrition for the larvae to develop normally and emerge from the soil as adult flies. Interestingly, house fly larvae require very little manure to complete devel- opment. Sand containing only 0.47% manure solids (bovine) and 4.74% moisture was suffi- cient to support normal fly development [14]. MANURE INCORPORATION STUDY Core samples of the poultry manure col- lected from the poultry house averaged 154 flies per 125 cc manure sample. Third instar larvae made up 77% of the flies sampled. House fly populations in the caged layer house were relatively high when the manure was re- moved in July (246hample) and September Research Report WATSON et ai. 305 FIGURE 1. Field site layout and location of emergence traps for manure incorporation study (192hample). Overall test means were re- duced because fly populations were sign& cantly lower in the August test (24/sample). Manure was thrown 10-12 m, with greater deposits falling within 3-4 m of the manure spreader. Fly larvae were visibly stunned from the flailing action of the manure spreader. Within 30 min of manure application, how- ever, many stunned larvae recovered and began to move about. Regardless of this appar- ent recovery, results of the post-spreading ma- nure sampling indicated that only l l %  of the flies survived. Incorporation tests demonstrated that moldboard plow reduced mean house fly Siu7rival(38.025.3) more than disk (45.0+6.6), harrow (48.025.3), and the control (51.026.4), but these differences were not significant (P < .382). The lack of sigmficance was, in part, a result of variation between JAPR HOUSE FLY SURVIVAL 50 1 40 30 20 10 0 T H THIRD INSTAR PUPAE 0 3 8 1 5  2 3  3 3  Depth (cm) FIGURE 2. Survival of house fly pupae and third instar larvae buried in loose soil at 0, 3, 8, 15, 23, and 33 cfr depths 100 - u) 0) u, 3 .I I80 - CI I 60 - z rc 0 2ol 0 W/OMANURE W/MANURE 0 3 8 1 5  2 3  3 3  Depth (cm) FIGURE 3. Survival of second instar house fly larvae buried with and without manure in loose soil at 0, 3,8, 15, 23, and 33 cm depths Research Report WATSON et al. 307 samples. Adult flies emerged from field soil for 21 days (Figure 4). Fly emergence from field soil began within 3 days of application. Few flies were collected from the traps on Days 3 and 7. Surviving house fly pupae were the likely source of this early emergence. Most house fly emergence occurred 10-17 days fol- lowing incorporation regardless of treatment. Fly emergence nearly ceased by 21 days. Average surface soil temperature during the July test was 28.7T (Table 1). Soil temper- ature at 33 cm depth was more than 4" cooler, 24.3"C. August temperatures were warmer and September soil temperatures were cool- est. Differences in soil temperature were ex- pected to influence the developmental time of larvae in the soil. House fly larvae complete development in 5-6 days at 30°C and complete pupation in 4-5 days [9]. Because cooler soil temperatures slow the developmental time, we expected adult house flies to emerge from the soil sooner in August than in either July or September. Interestingly, most flies emerged from the soil on Day 10 regardless of test month. We suspect the uneven age structure of the immature fly population obscured the tem- perature effects. It is likely that a more dra- matic temperature effect would have been observed in more controlled environments. Extrapolating from the July core samples, nearly 11 million house flies were removed from the poultry house in one manure spreader. As the manure was spread on the field, the flailing action of the manure spreader caused 89% mortality. We estimate that about 1.2 million flies survived the manure spreader. Moldboard plowing had the most deleterious impact on fly survival. With 25% of the flies surviving burial to 33 cm (12 in.), we could expect about 302,000 adult flies to emerge from the field. Given an equivalent larval density, a commercial caged layer house of 100,000 birds would produce about 440 million flies, most of which would be killed by spreading the manure. Still, without incorpo- ration, we could expect 48.4 million flies to emerge from the field. Consequently, field ap- plication of manure continues to pose a threat of pest outbreaks. If frequent manure removal is the management practice of choice, it should be spread daily. Removing manure only during the coldwinter months continues to be thebest alternative to daily manure cleanout. Year-round fly management programs that maintain fly populations at tolerable levels reduce the chance of nuisance complaints. In- tegrated pest management (IPM) strategies emphasize keeping the manure dry ( ~ 5 0 %  30 T CONTROL DISK HARROW PLOW 20 10 3 7 10 14 17 2 1  24 28 Day Following Incorporation -IGURE 4. Adult house fly emergence from field soil following mechanical incorporation of manure 308 JAPR HOUSE FLY SURVIVAL TABLE 1. Air and soil temperatures at five different depths in a fallow field at Freeville, NY moisture), biological control through aug- mentative releases of parasitoids and preda- tors, and the judicious use of insecticides, to slow the insecticide resistance and minimize the impact on biological control agents [lo]. Future studies will focus on pre-spreading handling of manure to reduce or eliminate insect populations. In-house composting may increase temperatures sufficiently to kill pest populations, or perhaps innovative designs for manure handling equipment may be beneficial. CONCLUSIONS AND APPLICATIONS 1. House flies buried 33 cm (12 in.) in field soil completed development and successfully 2. The flailing action of the manure spreader caused si@icant fly mortality. 3. Mechanical incorporation had minimal impact on fly survival, and no method was si@i- 4. When temperatures favor fly development an outbreak can be expected 10 days following emerged as adult flies. cantly better than surface application. the land application of fly-laden manure. ~ ~ ~~ ~~ REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. Wilkinson, S R ,  1979. Plant nutrient and economic value of animal manures. J. h i m .  Sci. 48:121-133. 2. Moore, P.A., T.C. Daniel, AN. Sharpley, and C.W. W O O 4  1995. Poultry manure management: Environmen- tally sound options. J. Soil and Water Cons. 50321-327. 3. Sims, J.T., D.W. Murphy, and T.S. Handwerker, 1992. Composting of poultry wastes: Implications for dead poultry disposal and manure management. J. Sus- tainable Agric. 267-82. oper- ations on the urban fly problem in the eastern3nited States. Pa es 17-24 in: Rural plies in the Urban Environ- ment. G.% . Thomas and S.R Skoda, eds. Res. Bull. No. 317, Agric. Res. Div., Institute of Agric. and Natural Resources, Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE. 5. Anonymous, 1996. How many flies can an egg farm make? Egg Industry 101(9):21. 6. Miller, J.P., 1997. That crunchy stuff in your cereal bowl may not be granola: Beetles invade an Ohio town when chicken farm’s plan for fly control goes awry. Wall Street Journal, November. 7. Bart4 C.L, 1986. Fl control through manure man- agement. Poultry sci. ~ 5 : & ~ 7 4 .  8. Axtell. RC., 1986. Fly management in oultry pro- duction: Cultural, biological, and chemical. goultry Sci. 65:657-667. 4. Hogsette, J.A., 1993. The influence of poult 9. Rut& D.A. and C.W. Pith, 1993. Pest Management Recommendations for Poultry. Cornell Univ. and Penn State Coop. Ext. Pub. 3M1093kunz, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY. 10. Axtell, RC., 1984. Fly Control in Confined Livestock and Poultry Production. Ciba Geigy Corp., Greensboro, NC. 11. Arends, JJ., 1988. Insect and fly control inpoultry waste. Pa es 34-35 in: Natl. Poultry Waste Mana ement Symp., UgDA and Ohio State Univ., Columbus, 8 H .  12. Pickens, LG., ET. Schmidtmann, and R.W. Miller, 1994. How to Control House and Stable Flies Without Using Pesticides. A ric Information Bull. No. 673, U.S. Dept. of Agric., kshjngton, DC. 13. Minitab, 1997. User’s guide. Minitab Release 11. State College, PA. 14. Hogsette, J.A., 1996. Development of house flies (Diptera: Muscidae) in sand containing varying amounts of manure solids and moisture. J. Econ. Entomol. 89 94G945. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We thank J. Bennett of the Animal Science Depart- ment, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY and S. Long, G. Howser, J. Berry and J. Finnerty, Cornell University, and the Thompson Research Farm, Freeville, NY. This work was supported by New York State Inte ated Pest Management Grants and Hatch Project 1394%. 

House Fly (Musca domestica L.) Survival after Mechanical Incorporation of Poultry Manure into Field Soil

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