Fruit fly outbreak affects hundreds of Riverland growers

Fruit fly outbreaks in the Riverland will hit hundreds of growers, experts say, as up to 100 people pack a Renmark meeting.

Bookpurnong stone fruit grower Jason Size is concerned about fruit fly outbreaks in the Riverland. Picture Mark Brake

Hundreds of fruit growers will be affected by two fruit fly outbreaks in the Riverland, Biosecurity SA says, as businesses explore their options to prepare fruit for sale.

About 70-100 people attended a meeting in Renmark on Monday to discuss the outbreaks of Queensland fruit fly in Renmark West and Monash over the past fortnight.

Grape and citrus growers are among those affected, but stone fruit producers are most immediately impacted as they are in the middle of their harvest.

Summerfruit SA represents stone fruit growers, and chairman Jason Size said producers now had to determine the best way to treat their fruit before selling it, and how much that would cost.

A sterile Queensland fruit fly on an apricot.

He said some may allow their fruit to go to waste if treatment costs were too high.

“I haven’t heard of commercial growers saying that but it is a potential option if they don’t think the cost of the extra treatment warrants the expense,” he said.

“They’re still weighing up … what it costs them compared to what they get back, whether they continue to try to move their fruit.

“That’s the unfortunate reality of having to deal with fruit fly and why we’ve been trying to keep our region fruit fly free for so long.”

Biosecurity SA plant health operations manager Nick Secomb said the organisation was yet to determine the number of affected growers, but there were more than 300 grape producers alone in the Riverland quarantine area.

Organic baiting would help eradicate the fruit fly, and sterile flies would also be released in a month or two, to weed out any of the insects that remained.

Mr Secomb said cold storage and fumigation were among the available treatments to help growers get their fruit to market, and doubted the cost would force them to let their fruit go to waste.

Other Australian growers already had to shoulder treatment costs if selling into fruit fly-free areas, he said.

“There will be hundreds of growers within the (Riverland) suspension area that will have to do something to be able to move their fruit,” Mr Secomb said. “We just need to try and minimise those impacts and try to get people through as quickly and easily as we can.”

Fruit fly larvae was discovered in backyard fruit trees in December, prompting Primary Industries and Regions SA to establish suspension areas across a large part of the region.

For more information, visit pir.sa.gov.au/fruitfly.

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Originally published as Fruit fly outbreak affects hundreds of Riverland growers