Politics & Government

Oriental Fruit Flies Found in Santa Clara County

The oriental fruit fly poses a danger to California's multibillion-dollar agricultural industry, feasting on 230 different kinds of fruits and vegetables,


—By Bay City News Service 

State agricultural employees have begun efforts to kill a fruit fly from Southeast Asia discovered in Cupertino that can attack about 230 types of fruits and vegetables, a Santa Clara County agriculture official said.

The workers from the California Department of Food and Agriculture started spraying a pheromone mixed with insecticide in Cupertino meant to lure male oriental fruit flies, according to county agricultural commissioner Joseph Deviney. 

They sprayed street trees and utility poles in a 10-square-mile area southwest of state Highway 85 and De Anza Boulevard, deputy agricultural commissioner Michelle Thom said. 

The crews, working from trucks with tanks of the insecticide mixture, sprayed about 600 places, or "bait stations," in residential areas in Cupertino, Thom said. 

The pheromone triggers a sexual attraction in males, who land on the spots of the gel-like liquid and die after ingesting the poison, Deviney said. 

The "male attraction" technique as it is called kills "all the males and the population collapses" because they cannot mate with females that lay eggs, Deviney said. 

The oriental fruit fly poses a danger to California's multibillion-dollar agricultural industry due to its many life cycles and preference for some 230 different kinds of fruits and vegetables, Deviney said. 

The female flies like juicy fruits such as apples, pears, peaches, plums and oranges that they can dig into and lay eggs that become maggots and ruin the crops, according to Deviney. 

The state put its sprayers into action after two male oriental flies were found recently in traps placed by state employees in Cupertino, Deviney said. 

California's Secretary of Agriculture then issued an emergency proclamation to start eradicating the fly in the city, according to the county Department of Agriculture's website. 

Another round of spraying will probably take place in Cupertino in about two weeks and then another two weeks after that and if none of the flies are detected in traps "we might be out of it by then," Deviney said. 

The eradication effort is similar to the one the state did in September in East San Jose against the guava fruit fly, which is attracted to fewer fruits and vegetables than the oriental, Deviney said. 

The state performed three spray treatments back then and no guava flies have been trapped since. "That usually means we won," Deviney said. 

The oriental is a different species from the guava but its males are nonetheless attracted to the same pesticide-laced pheromones, Deviney said. 

Oriental flies live all over mainland Southeast Asia and their eggs must have been transported in fruits or vegetables that were sent from there to California, Deviney said. 

The detection in Cupertino was the sixth time the oriental fruit fly has been found in the county since 2007, the most recent in July 2012 in Morgan Hill, according to the county agriculture department's website. 

The guava fruit fly is also from Southeast Asia, Deviney said. 

The message for locals is do not have anyone send them fruits or vegetables from foreign countries, he said.

Copyright © 2013 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.


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