Queensland Fruit Fly 27.02.15

Growers urge cricket fans to leave fruit at home!
KVH, Horticulture NZ and Pipfruit NZ have joined together to place a full page advertisement in today’s New Zealand Herald asking cricket fans NOT to take fruit into the ground for tomorrow’s Cricket World Cup game.

Eden Park, the venue for tomorrow’s World Cup Cricket clash between Australia and New Zealand, is right on the border of the controlled area.

A joint media statement reinforcing this message was released this morning. It was quickly picked up by media providing further coverage.

• Click here to view the full page advertisement in today’s paper
• Click here to view the joint media release by KVH, HortNZ and Pipfruit NZ
• Click here to view an article on the NZ Herald
  

Mitigating the risk at tomorrow’s Cricket World Cup game at Eden Park
Planning is well underway to reduce the risks at tomorrow’s Cricket Word Cup game between New Zealand and Australia.

Fifty eight staff, including uniformed MPI and Auckland City Council staff will join security at Eden Park tomorrow to to ensure fruit and vegetables are not taken out of the controlled area.

There is a detailed plan for the removal of all waste (expected to be around 10.5 tonnes) from the ground, including sweeping every seat row. Waste will be taken to a biosecurity waste disposal facility and held at a high temperature that kills insects in all stages of their life cycle.

QFF situation update
The total number of fruit flies found to date now stands at eight.
DNA testing is ongoing and all flies tested to date are genetically similar. Therefore it’s most likely we are dealing with a single incursion.

There has been a second discovery of larvae inside Zone A from fruit harvested from a property where a male Queensland fruit fly had earlier been trapped.

The larvae were from fruit gathered from a property that is 80m from the site where larvae and one pupa were found last week. As the larvae were nearby and within Zone A this is not considered a significant development and it is not unexpected to find more larvae.

MPI remains confident this is a small localised population and will be successfully eradicated.

Response update
Ground operations continue today in the Controlled Area with around 180 field staff on the ground (from MPI, AsureQuality and partners, including Auckland Council and the horticulture industry).

Field work continues to focus on the surveillance trapping system, which aims to capture any male fruit flies present in the area.

Field teams are also applying insecticide bait throughout the Controlled Area, informing residents about the controls and inspecting gardens and rubbish bins.

Potential market impact
Zespri along with MPI is closely monitoring the market response and expects to have a clearer picture of the situation from MPI over the next week or two.

Industry communications
KVH has reduced its industry communications on the fruit fly situation to twice-weekly. This will then be circulated to the wider industry through the KVH Bulletin Special Edition and made available on the KVH website.
Should circumstances significantly change, we will provide an update to industry immediately.

A set of FAQs have been developed and are available on the KVH website here. These will be updated as more information comes to light or if additional questions are added.

Detailed maps of the controlled area and a full description of the boundaries, and full information about the rules are available on the MPI website.