They seek to implement monitoring of the plague of the fruit fly in the cultivation of blueberries

10/07/2017

Last Wednesday blueberry producers met with technicians from the Plant Health Department of the Ministry of Production of the Province of Corrientes, in the facilities of the La Franca farm in AgroBerris located in the town of Tres de Abril, Department of Bella Vista.

In this second meeting, progress was made on fundamental issues and different strategies were outlined, necessary to implement official monitoring of the Fruit Fly plague in the crop. Some of them were to establish the distribution of the lots and determine the number of traps needed; requested the training of personnel in recognition of the pest through INTA Bella Vista, the cost and need of required resources and the capacity of the INTA laboratory to determine the species and the level of fly per trap per day (MTD) were evaluated, data that allows evaluating the threshold of actions to establish the moment of control.

The fruit fly is a pest and is considered one of the most economically important pests for fruit and vegetable production in Argentina, due to the damage it causes to the fruit and the associated economic losses. For this reason, in 1994 the National Program for the Control and Eradication of Fruit Fly - PROCEM - was created through Resolution ex - IASCAV No. 134, developing its actions on the pests Ceratitis capitata (Mediterranean Fly) and Anastrepha fraterculus ( South American fly).

The main objective of the Program is to reduce the socio-economic impact caused by this pest in the fruit and vegetable production chains, through its two main effects: direct losses caused by the reduction in production and the decrease in quality in the infested fruits, and indirect losses such as export restrictions or the need to apply quarantine treatments among other measures, which represent significant increases in marketing costs.

The national sanitary organism, SENASA, defines the parameters and coordinates the monitoring of this plague to establish an official report of its presence and population level. These data allow the sector as a whole to take regional intervention strategies to ensure that the pest is suppressed. As a Provincial counterpart, the Ministry of Production, through its Plant Health area, coordinates activities in the territory.

Source: caa.nearural