The Institute of Agricultural Health and Quality Mendoza (Iscamen) continues to provide sterile pupae or cocoons of Mediterranean flies to the control program developed by Chile through the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG), because Mendoza is a pioneer in this development to combat the plague called “Mediterranean fly”, informed the provincial economic portfolio.
Recently, a weekly delivery of 5 million pupae was agreed, up to 75 million, to combat this pest that affects fruits.
The insects are produced in the Bioplant that the Province owns in the department of Santa Rosa and will be released mainly in the Metropolitan Region and in other places in the Valparaiso Region, near Los Andes.
According to SAG referents, the results are very satisfactory, which opens the possibility of permanent purchase by Chile of biological material produced in Mendoza.
The national head of the Chilean SAG Fruit Flies Program, Jocelyn Yevenes, visited Mendoza to participate in the “Argentina-Bolivia-Chile trinational workshop to strengthen the control capacity of the Mediterranean fly through the cold adult” .
The Chilean official highlighted the joint work that has been carried out in different areas and fundamentally in the incorporation of the release of sterile insects called the “cold adult technique”.
The new release technique allows optimizing the competitiveness and efficiency of the released insect, since it is subjected to less stress and has better conditions until its release.
This advance began to be used in the Uco Valley and in the southern oasis, areas internationally recognized as free of the plague. Then the Patagonia Medfly Control Program was added, where the insects produced in Santa Rosa are also released.
The president of Iscamen, Alejandro Molero, highlighted that with the continuity of shipments to Patagonia, Chile and Bolivia, the goal of converting the Santa Rosa Bioplant, which is the largest in South America, into a production and distribution center is being achieved. of regional biological material.
The sterile insect technique (SIT) has been used for more than 20 years for the control, eradication and maintenance of free areas. The purpose is to minimize the risk of multiplication and survival of fertile flies that could enter the protected areas of the province of Mendoza and the Patagonian region.
It consists of mass rearing, sterilization and subsequent release into the environment of sterilized male Mediterranean fly specimens, which, when crossed with fertile females, do not leave offspring. It is complemented with chemical, cultural and legal control actions.
Source: Ambito
