In the latest chapter of California's eternal fight against harmful fruit flies, residents and business owners in Redlands will soon be forced to give up any fruit growing on their property to prevent the infestation from spreading to the rest of the country. state.
Those within the quarantine area “are asked not to remove fruit from the trees themselves and not to move products they own,” according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Fallen fruit at the 2,000 residences in the affected area should be double bagged and disposed of in the trash, the agency said in a statement.
A large area of Redlands will be quarantined to prevent the spread of the oriental fruit fly.
(California Department of Food and Agriculture)
Officials will carry out fruit removal through February, seeking to prevent damage to the state's agricultural economy that the department says could cost billions if the oriental fruit fly is not controlled.
The oriental fruit fly, which is about 8 millimeters long and slightly larger than a house fly, is generally bright yellow. It has transparent wings and a dark “T”-shaped mark on its abdomen, according to the agency.
“White maggots can be found burrowing into fruit,” according to the CDFA. Adults can move several kilometers in a day and females can lay about 1,500 eggs throughout their life.
The state tries to prevent flies from entering fruit brought from places such as Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and Hawaii. “Fruit from infested countries must be fumigated before entering the state, but untreated fruit often arrives by mail and passengers,” the agency's website says.
The quarantine order is just the latest scare involving invasive fruit flies.
According to the department, there are at least four statewide quarantine orders related to the oriental fruit fly. They cover a large area in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, part of Rancho Cordova in Sacramento County, the Brentwood area in Contra Costa County and part of Santa Clara.
“Nowhere in the world are fruit fly invasions as frequent, recurrent, persistent, continuous, contiguous, widespread and taxonomically diverse as those that have occurred in California,” the UC Davis entomology professor told the Times in November. , James Carey.
In July, the invasive Tau fruit fly caused a quarantine in Los Angeles County. Residents of Stevenson Ranch in the Santa Clarita Valley were told not to take fruit from their property and to double bag any fruit they threw in the trash.
After the discovery of three Mediterranean fruit flies, or medflies, in October, Los Angeles County officials dropped millions of sterile flies into a 9-square-mile area around Baldwin Hills to prevent an outbreak.
Times staff writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.
