YOUR PRODUCTION
3 QFLY is the most important economic pest of Australia’s horticultural industries.
Queensland fruit fly
IMAGE © Pia Scanlon, DPIRD
eradication program underway in Perth
T
he Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) has been responding to a Queensland fruit fly (Qfly) outbreak within the Perth metropolitan area since March 2020. A significant number of male Qfly were detected in the Perth suburb of Dalkeith through DPIRD’s permanent Qfly trapping grid. DPIRD responded quickly with the installation of supplementary lure trapping, which detected more male Qfly in nearby Claremont and Nedlands. DPIRD immediately instigated an eradication program aligned with the Code of Practice for Management of Queensland Fruit Fly. This included establishing a Quarantine Area over all of Dalkeith and parts of Claremont and Nedlands, and undertaking surveillance and baiting activities within the Outbreak Zone (200m from Qfly detections). DPIRD Chief Plant Biosecurity Officer Sonya Broughton said DPIRD was well placed to respond to the incursions, having achieved eradication of Qfly from WA on seven separate occasions since 1989.
10
WA Grower WINTER 2020
“Qfly is the most important economic pest of Australia’s horticultural industries, attacking both fruit and some fruiting vegetables. Freedom from Qfly allows WA to meet national and international requirements for market access of host produce,” Dr Broughton said.
“If eradication is not successful, WA will lose access to those markets which recognise that WA is free from Qfly, including avocados to Japan and strawberries to Thailand.” Dr Broughton said at the very minimum the export protocols which are currently all based on east-west distribution in Australia (no Qfly in the west, no Mediterranean fruit fly in the east) would need to be renegotiated. This would be a lengthy process that would impact on current market access and protocols currently under negotiation’. “The price competitiveness of WA produce would also be weakened as produce imported from interstate would no longer require treatment for Qfly, and WA produce would still be subject to treatment for Medfly on produce shipped interstate.” Dr Broughton said in the early stages of the program Qfly detections were increasing every day, which indicated a
breeding population, but early baiting of street trees had an immediate effect by reducing detection numbers. “However, the eradication program was presented with an early challenge to contact approximately 2700 properties in the Outbreak Zone without door knocking, due to the CVOID-19 Pandemic,” she said. “Contact with residents is essential to arranging access to all properties within the Outbreak Zone to identify host plants and conduct larvae searches in Qfly host fruit*, and to commence the application of spots of bait (using Naturalure®) on Qfly host trees, and shade trees when no hosts are present.” Standard Operating Procedures were developed based on national and health government advice to allow door knocking to commence, due to a poor response to contact cards being left in mailboxes. DPIRD also introduced a community awareness campaign to encourage residents to make contact about property access, as well as compliance with the Quarantine Area restrictions on moving and disposing of Qfly host fruit*. “As of 19 May 2020, DPIRD has been able to make contact with owner/ occupiers of 97% of properties in the Outbreak Area, and have commenced baiting on 53% of properties,” Dr Broughton said.
