A DANGEROUS FRUIT PEST

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1746, 23 August 1905, Page 61

A DANGEROUS FRUIT PEST

An instruction that has just been issued by the Government to the fruit inspectors appears to he fraught with dire possibilities to the fruit-growing industry. Hitherto' it' has been the custom of the fruit inspectors at the various ports toi burn the whole of any consignment under any mark if the fruit is found to he infected with the “fruit maggot.’ 5 The practice also obtains in each of the Australian States. It is, therefore, something of a shock to learn that the inspectors at Auckland have received instructions to allow the fruit to he sorted over in the sheds of the importers, and the apparently sound fruit retained for sale. This is a matter of the very gravest importance to the fruitgrowers of the colony, incurring the serious risk of introducing to our orchards the dreaded “ fruit fly,” which, an expert has stated, “ is fifty thousand times worse than the oodlin moth.” Local growers are desirous that the former regulation providing for the burning of all consignments found to be infected should be immediately restored. There is reason for making this request. Experts assure us that thi codlin moth is a comparatively

harmless insect com', with the fruit fly. In the first instance, the “ fly ” attacks all stone fruits, then tomatoes, apples, and pears, and, failing them, it tackles the citrous fruits. It is food of the banana, but as the bulk of our oemsiginments of bananas are shipped green, there is little risk with that fruit.

Soane persons have supposed that the “fruit fly” could only live in countries much warmer than , New Zealand, but they need not look for a solace in that direction, for the “ fly ” has repeatedly been reared in wire gauze cages in this colony by the Agricultural Department in normal temperature—the experiments covering a period going as far back as 1878. The flies have been observed puncturing the fresh fruit supplied, and depositing their eggs beneath the skin, and from these eggs the deadly maggot has been hatched. Further, the fact that the flv was discovered in an orchard at Launceston, Tasmania, sufficiently confirms the statement that the pest is quite able to live and propagate its noxious breed in New Zealand. The detection of the maggot in fruit is not so simple a matter as might he imagined, for the fly has a disagreeable habit of making merely a tiny punoture, difficult to detect, in the skin of the fruit, in which, is carefully deposited the ova that produces the malignant maggot, which straightway proceeds to eat away all the pulp, leaving the fruit meanwhile apparently sound, so far as casual examination can discover. The danger of introducing this pest from Queensland or the Pacific Islands ought to he rigorously guarded against. The Government has done much to encourage the fruit-growing industry ; instructors and inspectors have been appointed, nind a canning expert has been imported t-o demonstrate how tha surplus fruit can be treated for the world’s markets. The Agricultural Department, through its Biologist, tells the fruit-farmer the best methods of dealing with orchard pests; and then, and not till then, the most destructive of all fruit pests is practically Jnvited to walk right in and do its will in its own thorough-going fashion. Insect nests are most difficult to. suppress if once they obtain a foothold, and every effort should be made to keep out the dreaded fruit fly. The people can do without imported fruit, if necessary, but. they will gladly suffer worse inconvenience rather than see the fruit industry of this country destroyed.