Medfly is among several targets of new technology that benefits Hawaiian farmers and gardeners

Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) were honored by their agency for moving a variety of technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace. The awards were presented at ARS' annual national awards ceremony at USDA headquarters in Washington DC.

An award for "Outstanding Efforts in Technology Transfer" went to Hawaii-based ARS scientists and their federal and state colleagues for development and dissemination of science-based, environmentally friendly technologies for controlling oriental and Mediterranean fruit fly and other invasive species of tropical fruit flies.

The ARS winners were entomologists Roger I. Vargas and Eric B. Jang and plant pathologist Dennis Gonsalves at the agency's U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center at Hilo, Hawaii, and ARS collaborators Carroll O. Calkins, formerly at Wapato, Washington, and Robert M. Faust, formerly at Beltsville, Maryland. The other team members were Ronald Mau of the University of Hawaii at Manoa; Stuart H. Stein of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and Lyle Wong of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

"Growers and hobbyist gardeners who are trying out these fruit fly control tactics are harvesting unblemished guavas, loquats and other top-quality produce for local and export markets," said ARS Administrator Edward B. Knipling.

Background

Tsukasa Yamamoto (left) of B.E.S.T. Farms and ARS technician Mike Klungness look over a patch of fruit fly-free tomatoes.

ARS's U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center (PBARC) in Hilo, Hawaii, is leading the first successful effort to deal with the exotic fruit flies that have been devastating Hawaiian farms and gardens for 100 years.

Four exotic fruit fly species are major problems in Hawaii. The medfly and the melon fly both arrived in the late 1800s; the oriental fruit fly came in 1945; and the Malaysian fruit fly is the newcomer, first being found in Hawaii in 1983.

This quartet of tiny pests can lay eggs in and ruin more than 400 different fruits and vegetables, including citrus, coffee, eggplant, guava, loquat, mango, melon, papaya, passion fruit, peach, pepper, persimmon, plum, star fruit, tomato, and zucchini. And with the recent decline of sugar and pineapple plantations, it is just these fruit fly-susceptible, high-value crops that are now the backbone of Hawaiian agriculture.

For years, exotic fruit flies have driven Hawaiian farmers either to near-weekly sprayings of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides or to simply abandoning crop production altogether. Industry experts estimate that exotic fruit flies were costing Hawaii more than $300 million each year in lost markets for locally grown produce. And that doesn't include potentially high-value export markets.

After only 4 years, the program is already having tremendous success, as evidenced by the award. Key to the program has been the extraordinary teamwork among ARS, state and university experts that has gone into helping growers and gardeners in Hawaii adopt an anti-fruit fly technology package.

Contact: Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center