SA Fruitfly roadblock warning in Riverland

Yeah, my father was a Commonwealth Vet and when I was a kid I spent a lot of school holiday time with him in WA while he travelled to different agricultural areas and abbatoirs. Funny how vets also are responsible for many agriculture products as well as the animal industry. Any way, I grew up with a very healthy appreciation of the need to protect our primary industries from disease and I am all in favour of whatever it takes in this area.

Yes,and remember this includes going East from Adelaide into the SA Riverland, such as at Swan Reach. We had to ditch some BEAUTIFUL tomatoes a while back, and my wife has NEVER forgotten!!

The lack of consistency between the info posted on websites, in brochures etc and what actually happens on the ground works against effective compliance. If the departments involved were really concerned about protecting farmers against fruit fly or disease outbreaks they would sort out these issues.

To get compliance you need co-operation from the travelling public (not cynicism). To get co-operation you need policies that make sense; that are communicated clearly and that are consistent with what is actually in place in terms of inspection.

Cheers,

Val

Val,

Come on, get real - you want all of that from a Government department?

Paul

We passed through the fruit fly block at Oodlawirra yesterday and were given a handbook which lists all the information needed for every state. It is great. We had the NSW pamphlets from a couple of years ago and used them when passing into the zone near Broken Hill.

We have found that if we tell the inspectors what we have they will always tell us what they have to take. Yesterday it was an onion, but in NSW having an onion was okay.

We don't have a problem with this as it is important.

Bob, I am no expert on this and I think you should contact your local Dept of Agriculture.
But, there are quite a lot of small flies and the first thing you need to do is get them identified so you are sure that you really are dealing with fruit fly.
If they are fruit fly, I don't think the following will eradicate them, but it can help to protect your garden. They are attracted to bright yellow (well some types of them are anyway, not sure whether it is true for all types). Tie lots of yellow cards, about 3inches by 3inches, cated with honey around the garden bed where you have things you want to protect. They seem to go for these first and then stick on them. I used this with some success in Alice Springs when my capsicums were ravaged by the local fruit fly up there. No idea whether or not it will work in other areas.

And a message for John. What you say is true, but like all such issues, it is a balancing act with what governments think the public are prepared to pay in taxes for a particular service . What do you reckon permanent 24 hour per day checking stations on all access roads to the fruit growing areas might cost taxpayers? Just how much info do you think the public wants to have to deal with all the time? If you were a fruit grower in the Riverland, how much trust would you have in your fellow citizens willingness to always do the right thing so we didn't need checking stations? Are you prepared to to argue for just one government across Australia to ensure we have uniform laws across the country? Why do I doubt that you would accept any of these?

Bob, I meant to add, there is a good chance that the flies you describe might be vinegar flies. If so, these are harmless and have a noble place in scientific research if you care to follow up on their place in the study of genetics.

OK. Will try to photograph them and contact the Dept of Agriculture. It was just they were more attracted to the fruit that had me curious. didn't seem to worry about sandwich. Thanks for the advice. Bob.

The fruit was sweet and they could smell it.

I have always wondered about the effectiveness of the check point system as the flies are not going to stop at any road block they just fly on by so to speak so it seems like a lot of time , money and effort for nothing.

I should add that I don't carry fruit through these zones but it does seem a pointless exercise to look at every vehicle.

I don't know the range of fruit fly either. If my father was still around I cxould ask hime, it was the sort of stuff he dealt in. By and large he favoured quarantine systems and the Riverland area does, generally, seem to have been kept clean of fruit fly. I'll bet my father is turning in his grave however at the curren Federal Governments decision to resume beef imports.

John, It's not the distance that fruit flies can travel but the Larva(spell) that is carried inside fruit that is the problem. people don't always eat all the fruit or might come across a piece that is starting to rot and throw it out of the car window. If maggots are present, they will hatch and start an outbreak.
A fruit fly outbreak here in the Riverland will be financially disastrous for our local economy.

Mr P I don't dispute the outbreak and financial ruin situation, but whats to stop a fly buzzing past the check point and laying its eggs on a piece of fallen fruit on someones farm within the restricted zone and so starting an out break from there??

John, I think the 150k's of surrounding dry mallee would stop all but the most ardent fruit flies from winging it here. LOL
Actually, I believe that their range of activity is less than a kilometer as when thay have an outbreak in Adelaide, the area that they quarantine off is not all that large. When they treat an area, they release thousands of treated male flies that cannot reproduce so that the females cannot be fertilised. It takes about 10 to 12 weeks to treat an area so that it regains fruit fly free status again.

Now there's a thought. Perhaps Dasher we could also put that post on the recent thread where human population numbers were under discussion.