Peach Fruit Fly Found in Fairfield

Agricultural officials is Solano County announced that a Peach Fruit Fly Bactrocera zonata was detected in a suburban neighborhood in Fairfield.

State and county workers have responded quickly, setting up additional insect survey traps in a process called delimitation. 

“If we think of our regular exotic pest survey as a cell phone photo, then delimitation survey would be high definition with 25 times as many pixels” said Solano County Agricultural Commissioner Jim Allan. 

The news about the fruit fly came on the same day Representative Mike Thompson announced the founding of the bipartisan Congressional Invasive Species Caucus which he co-founded with Rep. Dan Benishek (R-MI-1).

According to a release sent from Thompson’s office, “The Caucus will provide opportunities for Members of Congress to meet with other policy makers, organizations and industry leaders that are working to prevent the spread of invasive species.”

In Solano County officials are saying that if additional flies are found, treatment and quarantine options will be considered. To date no additional flies have been found after several servicing’s of the delimitation traps.

The Peach Fruit Fly is native to North Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.  It feeds on more than 30 known host fruits and vegetables, and its larvae cause damage similar to that of Medfly. How this fly came to Solano County is unknown at this time.

The local Agriculture Department requests the public’s help on three issues:

· Cooperate with technicians placing traps in fruit trees and gardens;

· Report discoveries of fruit infested with larvae to the Agricultural Commissioner; and

· Not to circumvent international travel and mail restrictions on bringing fruit into the country.

“So far, we have had wonderful cooperation from occupants. Solano County residents have a good level of awareness about the value of agriculture and food systems,” said Linda Pinfold, Deputy Agricultural Commissioner.

In recent years, several exotic pest infestations have been successfully eradicated from Solano County: European Grapevine moth in Suisun Valley, Medfly in Dixon, Japanese Dodder- an aggressive parasitic plant, and Glassy-winged Sharpshooter- an insect that carries a deadly grape disease.

“In each case, we found the pest soon enough to knock it out because our early detection system has been working” Allan said.

More information on Peach Fruit Fly may be found on the California Department of Food and Agriculture website:

http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/pdep/target_pest_disease_profiles/peach_ff_profile.html