Medfly outbreak halted in South Florida, officials say

A day after agriculture officials said two Oriental fruit flies were trapped in Pinellas County, they said an outbreak of a different species of crop-threatening fly has been wiped out in Palm Beach County.

Eradication of the first Mediterranean fruit fly outbreak in a decade allows the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to lift restrictions on movement of fruit in the area.

The flies were found in June in Boca Raton, prompting agriculture inspectors to set out 2,000 more traps that caught additional flies. The flies infested mango, loquat and sour orange trees.

The agriculture department banned people from moving fruit and vegetables inside the area.

The eradication effort included insecticides, removing infected fruit from infected trees and releasing sterile male flies that mated with wild females but produced no eggs.

Officials said today the outbreak was eradicated after no new flies were found in traps for three lifecycles of the tiny fly, or about 60 days.

Mediterranean fruit flies are considered one of the most dangerous pests for agriculture.

Adult flies lay eggs in fruits or vegetables. The maggots that hatch feed inside the fruit or vegetable, causing it to rot.

Just about every kind of fruit or vegetable is vulnerable to the flies. The flies affect more than 250 fruits and vegetables, including commercially valuable varieties such as oranges, mangoes and tomatoes.

The last major outbreak of the pest was in 1997 and 1998 and covered nine counties, including Hillsborough.

Eradicating that outbreak cost $32 million.

In Pinellas County, one of the 56,000 traps around the state in an on-going monitoring program found two male Oriental fruit flies in a grapefruit tree.

After the discovery, the agriculture department added traps to cover an area of 81 square miles around the tree where the flies were found. The traps will be checked every week, instead of the normal three-week schedule.

The traps have found no more Oriental fruit flies.

Though not considered as large a threat to crops as the Mediterranean variety, Oriental fruit flies are a danger to more than 100 different fruits, vegetables and nuts, including citrus, tomatoes, mangoes and peppers.