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Protecting the nation’s orchard
PROTECTING thenation’s orchard
Spreading the No Flies On Us! message and protecting the region from Queensland fruit fl y.
The Goulburn Murray Valley Fruit Fly Project draws on the support and dedication of a broad volunteer base to help lead the charge in protecting the region against Queensland fruit fl y.
More than 3000 volunteers from
Lions clubs, Rotary clubs and other community groups, as well as school children, have helped grower groups and local government reduce fruit fl y in the Goulburn Murray Valley region.
Goulburn Murray Valley Fruit Fly
Project co-ordinator Ross Abberfi eld said the pest had the potential to wreak havoc in Victoria.
“Volunteer involvement in the Fruit Fly Area Wide Management Program has helped protect our horticulture-based lifestyle,” Mr Abberfi eld said.
“We would like to thank the project’s many and varied supporters for their contribution to protecting the region from the pest.”
Queensland fruit fl y is a serious threat to the region’s multi-million dollar horticultural industry and economy.
“If we are uninformed and divided in our eff orts to control fruit fl y, this pest will shelter and thrive in unmanaged habitat areas,” Mr Abberfi eld said.
“Conversely, if we are informed and united in our eff orts to control fruit fl y, it doesn’t have anywhere to hide and numbers can be reduced.”
The gross value of horticulture varieties grown in the Goulburn Murray Valley region that are considered hosts to Queensland fruit fl y is $415,000,000 annually.
The Goulburn Valley is the largest pear producer in the Southern Hemisphere and the Murray Valley is Australia’s largest stone fruit producer.
“The program has been highly successful in reducing fruit fl y numbers in the GMV over the past four years,” Mr Abberfi eld said.
“To date the program has removed over 100,000 unwanted and unmanaged fruit trees that would otherwise be a breeding ground for fruit fl y.”
The multi-award winning Fruit Fly Area Wide Management Program has galvanised the community, industry and government to work together to stop the catastrophic eff ects of fruit fl y and is now recognised as a leader both nationally and internationally.
The program manages and monitors an extensive network of urban/ peri-urban/rural and sterile fruit fl y release trapping grids across the GMV to identify and monitor ‘hot spots’.
Data from these trapping grids provides the community, industry, government and research institutions with fruit fl y activity data that enables the targeting of ‘hot spots’ together with regular communication of fruit fl y trends and pressure patterns to update the community and industry.
“The combined communication, management and control strategies
Chris O’Connor, SIT industry liaison co-ordinator with Macquarie University; Ross Abberfi eld, GMV Fruit Fly Project co-ordinator; Professor Phillip Taylor, head of Applied Bio Sciences at Macquarie University; and Dr Bishwo Mainali, senior research fellow at Macquarie University.
are critical to curbing the spread of Qfl y and limiting the impact on our horticultural domestic and export markets,” Mr Abberfi eld said.
Field offi cers are deployed as part of the program to target identifi ed ‘hot spot’ areas and build relationships with landholders to assist, advise and support them to manage and reduce fruit fl y populations in high pressure areas controlled by them.
Non-commercial unmanaged fruit fl y habitat on private and public land is identifi ed and can be removed at no cost to the landholder by the program.
The FFAWM platform developed in the GMV has supported activities by governments and universities in Victoria, Western Australia, NSW and New Zealand to assist in fruit fl y management and research.
This platform is complementing trials undertaken by the Macquarie University Fruit Fly Research Team, involving the aerial release of sterile fruit fl y in Cobram over a three-year period.
This sterile release trial — supported by FFAWM strategies and sterile release trapping grids monitoring the number of sterile and wild fruit fl ies within a radius of 1 km, 2 km and 5 km of the Cobram township — has helped reduce fruit fl y numbers in Cobram signifi cantly.
“The GMV Fruit Fly Project is about working together to protect our ‘nation’s orchard’,” Mr Abberfi eld said.
“Together we have been able to build community awareness, education and engagement to reduce fruit fl y numbers and minimise the damage caused by fruit fl y on our thriving regional horticultural industry.”
For more information on fruit fl y control and management, visit:
