Mediterranean and Oriental Fruit Flies: Survival in Commercial Fruit Cocktail13

Abstract

When fresh fruit cocktail (made with diced papaya, Carica papaya L.; diced pineapple, Ananas comosus (L.) Merr.; 50% sugar sirup; and lime juice) was placed in scaled polyethylene bags and artificially infested with about a million eggs and larvae of the oriental fruit fly, Dacus dorsalis Hendel, and the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), only 4 oriental fruit flies survived storage for 1-24 hours at air temperatures that ranged from 22° to. Also, none survived of a million similar insects in fruit cocktail after 1 and 4 days of storage at ca. 1.7°C. Moreover, in tests of fruit cocktail made with unpceled papayas infested with oriental fruit flies, none of about 114,000 insects survived storage for 4 days at 1.7°C or for: l days at 22-28°C. When peeled fruits were used in fruit cocktail, 1 day of storage at 1.7°C or at 22-28°C killed all the 113,000 fruit flies. Thus, careful selection of fruits, removal of generous amounts of peel and pedicel ends, use of diced pineapple, minimizing of air pockets in the polyethylene bags, and storage of the fruit cocktail in the sealed bags for 1-3 days at 1.7°C before shipment would make survival of any tephritids unlikely.