Attention, Florida: Invasive, exotic fruit flies are back, and they have huge appetites
Not so sweet news out of Florida for the squeamish.
Aside from invasive snails, you have another icky pest to worry about.
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) has sounded the alarm about Bactrocera dorsalis in Pinellas County.
Translation: Oriental fruit flies are on the loose around Pinellas Park and St. Petersburg — and they’re starving.
To protect crops in the area, there’s currently a quarantine order prohibiting the movement of fruit, vegetables and nuts without a compliance agreement from the department.
The FDACS, which says the flies were found recently during routine trapping, are duly concerned:
“Fruit flies are one of the most potentially destructive pests in the world,” the website warned late last month, adding they can voraciously attack a wide range of “host crops,” including vegetables, nuts and fruits (think: citrus, avocados and mangoes).
“This makes it imperative to act quickly and decisively” when any species is found.
To eradicate the bugs, a typical treatment is the male annihilation technique (MAT), a mix of bait and insecticide. Treatments are applied for a period of two life cycles of the fly, approximately 60 days.
How they multiply: Adult females deposit several eggs under the skin of a fruit or vegetable. After larvae hatch, they tunnel through the pulp, turning it into a “rotting mass,” the agricultural agency says.
The pesky insect has been trapped several times in Florida since 1964 and each time has been successfully eradicated. The Oriental fruit fly was last seen in South Florida in 2015, triggering a quarantine of about 85 square miles of fertile farmlands in South Miami-Dade.
READ MORE: They’re back, Florida. We’re talking about giant invasive snails
This story was originally published July 6, 2022 at 4:49 PM.
