Fruit fly control and monitoring in the Near East: shared concern in a regional transboundary problem.
Cayol J. P., Rössler Y., Weiss M., Bahdousheh M., Omari M., Hamalawi M., Almughayyar A.
Author Affiliation: International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria.
: 155-171
Abstract : The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), is a pest of major economic significance in most of the temperate, subtropical and tropical countries. In 1997, a pilot project named the Arava Medfly Eradication Project (AMEP), was initiated in the Arava Valley region south of the Dead Sea in Israel to control Medfly populations using the sterile insect technique (SIT) and thus allow export of commodities from the region to the U.S.A. and Japan without expensive post-harvest treatments. In 1998, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan joined the AMEP and launched a project in the Araba, the Jordanian side of the Arava Valley region. From 1998, sterile males of a temperature sensitive lethal (tsl) strain of Mediterranean fruit fly originating first from Madeira-Med facility then later from the Guatemalan El Pino facility, were released weekly over the Arava/Araba region. From 1999, the Territories Under the Jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority (TUJPA) joined the regional effort and initiated Medfly monitoring operations in the Gaza Strip. In early 2001, the project was extended to the Western Negev region of Israel. Weekly, 15 million sterile tsl males of strain Vienna 4-Tol 94 from Guatemala and five million sterile tsl males of strain Vienna 7i/Mix-2001 from the IAEA Laboratories in Seibersdorf, Austria, are shipped and released over the Arava/Araba valley and the Western Negev. Despite some technical problems due to long-duration shipment of pupae from Guatemala, and to the lack of quarantine restrictions in the Arava/Araba, the Medfly population has been successfully suppressed on both sides of the Jordan River south of the Dead Sea. In 2000, as a result of the Medfly suppression effort, the area from which Israeli Arava producers have been able to export vegetables certified 'free of Medfly' to the U.S.A., without post-harvest treatment, has been expanded. On the basis of the success in the Araba, Jordan is considering the use of area-wide SIT to suppress Medfly in the commercial fruit- and vegetable-growing area of the Shuna Valley, between north of the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. Based on the experience gained by its neighbours and on data accumulated during monitoring, sterile male releases are expected to be initiated in 2003 in the Gaza Strip. The peach fruit fly, Bactrocera zonata (Saunders), is a South-East Asian pest that is of major quarantine importance for exports to the U.S.A., Japan and European countries. In December 1998, this pest was officially identified and recorded for the first time in Egypt where it attacks some of the main fruit varieties in the Near East (e.g. mangos, peaches). In 2001, Egypt initiated a project to monitor and control this pest in the Sinai, using the male annihilation technique (MAT). Presence of the pest has now been confirmed from all areas of the Sinai, throughout the Nile Delta region and the entire Nile Valley. The plant protection authorities of Israel, Jordan and the TUJPA established emergency detection trapping networks in the border areas of Egypt, suspended importation/transit of Egyptian commodities, and are prepared to launch emergency plans. Area-wide MAT operations will soon be initiated in Eastern Sinai, progressing westwards towards the Suez Canal. Current status and cooperation among the four projects regarding these two major fruit fly pests are presented and discussed.