In contrast, essential oils seemed to repel B. tryoni from
artificial fruit owing to their volatile compounds. Flies that
attempted to land usually moved away quickly, especially at
higher concentrations, possibly to avoid the volatile compounds of the essential oils. This was in contrast to B. tryoni
encountering vegetable oils, which generally spent a considerable time (a few minutes) exploring the artificial fruit. The
implication from this study is that some essential oils may
provide better protection to rough-surface fruits or to smoothsurface fruits that have physical damage. However, essential
oils are generally not very persistent and may only prevent
fruit fly attack for a short period of time.