AGRICULTURE REPORT - Controlling Fruit Flies in Hawaii

AGRICULTURE REPORT - Controlling Fruit Flies in Hawaii
By Mario Ritter

Broadcast: Tuesday, March 02, 2004

This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Fruit flies can damage four-hundred kinds of crops. These insects lay eggs not just in fruit but also vegetables and nuts. The young eat the produce, making it unusable. A female can lay a thousand eggs in her short lifetime.

One of the most destructive kinds of fruit flies is the Mediterranean¹ fruit fly. California, for example, has spent almost thirty years fighting to keep the medfly out of the state.

Even islands far out at sea are not protected. The state of Hawaii has a history of problems with imported pests. The medfly came to Hawaii in the early nineteen-hundreds. Since then, three more kinds of fruit fly pests have arrived.

The Agricultural Research Service of the Department of Agriculture has a team to deal with the problem. The United States Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center is located in Hilo, Hawaii.

The center has designed a program that aims to keep damage below an economically important level. Lost markets now cost Hawaiian growers an estimated three-hundred-million dollars a year. Roger Vargas is an expert on insects. He started what is called the Hawaii Area-Wide Fruit Fly Integrated Pest Management program. The team says this program is showing success after three years.

Past campaigns tried to kill all the fruit flies. The new program attacks the problem through a series of steps. One is to stop fruit fly reproduction. Infertile² male flies are released to mate with the wild population. Also, growers are told to bury all unharvested fruit or vegetables. Or they can place them under a screening structure to keep young flies from escaping.

The program in Hawaii also uses a biological pesticide³ to kill fruit flies. It is called spinosad. It is produced by a microscopic⁴ organism. Spinosad is put into a substance that the fruit flies like to eat. The researchers say this is better for the environment than the common pesticide malathion. Malathion is a chemical that is sprayed on crops.

The program also uses a natural enemy of fruit flies. A kind of wasp⁵ called Biosteres arisanus feeds on medflies and oriental fruit flies.

As Kim Kaplan of the Agricultural Research Service reported last month, growers in the program like the results so far. They say they are using less pesticide. And they say they are finding less damaged fruit. Officials have extended the program for two more years.

This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by Mario Ritter. This is Steve Ember.

1 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

2 infertile   

adj.不孕的；不肥沃的，贫瘠的

参考例句：

• Plants can't grow well in the infertile land.在贫瘠的土地上庄稼长不好。
• Nobody is willing to till this infertile land.这块薄田没有人愿意耕种。

3 pesticide   

n.杀虫剂，农药

参考例句：

• The pesticide was spread over the vegetable plot.菜田里撒上了农药。
• This pesticide is diluted with water and applied directly to the fields.这种杀虫剂用水稀释后直接施用在田里。

4 microscopic   

adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的

参考例句：

• It's impossible to read his microscopic handwriting.不可能看清他那极小的书写字迹。
• A plant's lungs are the microscopic pores in its leaves.植物的肺就是其叶片上微细的气孔。

5 wasp   

n.黄蜂，蚂蜂

参考例句：

• A wasp stung me on the arm.黄蜂蜇了我的手臂。
• Through the glass we can see the wasp.透过玻璃我们可以看到黄蜂。