Sterile medflies are being released over San Diego County as part of a preventative released program.
The flies are sterilized with a small dose of gamma radiation renders the male sterile and when they are sent out to mate with the wild females, the females believing that they mated with the fertile male go about laying their eggs not realizing that their eggs have not been fertilized and essentially over time they breathe the population out of existence.
Mediterranean fruit flies target over 260 different types of fruits and vegetables. And California grows a large number of these crops. Two areas of the county have quarantines.
Karen Melvin, deputy Agricultural Commissioner: “We just really need to emphasize that the people in the Escondido and Fallbrook areas need to not move fruit from their yard, that because in transferring the fruit that often spreads the larva and the pests to different part of the county.
For CTN.org, I’m Susan Bartold.
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