Destroy infected fruit
If you find the fly or larvae in your produce the best thing to do is destroy the infected fruit straight away. You need to treat all fallen, damaged and stung fruit. This may mean removing all remaining fruit on the tree or plants. Experts recommend you treat any fruit containing larvae in this way.
Treat infected fruit by microwaving, freezing or placing the fruit in a sealed black plastic bag and leaving in the sun for at least seven days. Dispose of the fruit in the rubbish bin, not in the compost or in green waste.
Alert the community
It’s important that the community is aware of an outbreak and can take steps to contain it.
First, talk with your neighbours and suggest they put a monitoring trap on their property.
To report an outbreak in Harcourt contact Terry Willis from the Harcourt Valley Fruit Fly Action Group at
harcourtfruitfly@gmail.com. The group will contact major commercial orchardists or growers.
Monitor with traps
After you remove and destroy the fruit put up a male fruit fly monitoring trap.
Monitoring with traps lets you to see if male flies are present and if their numbers are growing. This is an important part of containing an outbreak.
We have outbreak kits which include lures, traps, stickers, letters to local residents and spreadsheets for monitoring the traps. See the outbreak plan for more details.
Eradicate and exclude
The plan outlines how to best eradicate fruit fly through a baiting and trap control program. The recommended approach includes the use of protein baits and insecticides. There is also the organic option of spinosad.
Along with baiting, netting or fruit bags over your produce can prevent females from laying eggs. However, the females can lay eggs into fruit if the netting or bags are too close to the fruit. Consider wildlife friendly netting. White coloured shade cloth or other coverings with fine mesh can be effective.
Don’t forget to remove and destroy all fallen, stung and damaged fruit by boiling, solarising, microwaving or freezing.
Remove annual plants that are affected (e.g. tomatoes, capsicums). Consider removal of abandoned or unmanaged host trees. Contact Council if there are trees on public areas you think may be infected.
Continue the eradication program until monitoring traps are clear.