Control of Caribbean Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Navel Orange by Forced Hot Air

Abstract

A single-stage, hot-air quarantine treatment was used to kill Caribbean fruit fly, Anastrepha suspensa (Loew), mature 3rd instars in Florida-grown 'Golden' navel orange, Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck. Treating infested navel orange with 48 ± 0.3°C forced air for 55.9 ± 0.3, 73.7 ± 1.3, and 119.4 ± 0.7 min, to reach final center pulp temperatures of 36-37, 40-41, and 44-45°C, respectively, when initial center pulp temperatures were 22.3 ± 0.2, 21.2 ± 0.2, and 20.5 ± 0.3°C, respectively, reduced the number of surviving puparia that developed from treated larvae. The exposure time needed to reach Q99.9968% mortality was 108.6 min (lower and upper fiducial limits were 88.4 and 200.3 min, respectively) when the final mean center pulp temperature was ≥44°C. A large-scale confirmatory test resulted in no survivors when 113,676 Caribbean fruit fly larvae in 1,200 manually infested navel oranges were heated with 48 ± 0.3°C forced air at an average 0.75 m 3 /s air flow rate until the center pulp temperatures were ≥44°C, which required 100.2 ± 3.0 min of heating when initial center pulp temperatures were 23.2 ± 0.4°C. Relative humidity ranged from 63.5% at the start of the test to 77.3% when the test was finished. After treatment at 48 ± 0.3°C for 105 min and 1 mo of storage at 5°C, there was no significant difference in quality characteristics between heated and unheated navel oranges.