Texas Mexfly Fruit Movement Protocol Revised

Federal agriculture officials have revised the requirements for the interstate movement of fresh citrus fruit from core areas of a Mexican fruit fly (Mexfly) quarantine in Texas. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) issued a revised federal order and protocol on Sept. 23.

The protocol in the federal order provides three schedules for the interstate movement of fresh citrus fruit from commercial groves in core areas of the Mexfly quarantine. In the protocol, APHIS continues to provide an option to growers for the movement of fresh citrus fruit from groves in core areas of the Mexfly quarantine not under a preventive release program and who don’t conduct post-harvest treatment prior to the triggering of a Mexfly quarantine.

The protocol maintains several levels of safeguarding, including enhanced trapping, bait sprays and sterile Mexfly release, while also improving clarity of the requirements to facilitate implementation and ensure compliance. The protocol also provides modified detection thresholds to better align with other fruit fly systems approach protocols and clarifies that it only applies to groves within core areas of a Mexfly quarantine in Texas. 

The revised systems approach provides domestic growers additional options for marketing fresh citrus fruit harvested from core areas of the Mexfly other than applying a post-harvest treatment. Post-harvest treatments are expensive, sometimes unavailable to growers, and often reduce the shelf life and commercial viability of the fruit. 

The APHIS Exotic Fruit Flies web page contains a description of all current federal fruit fly quarantines, regulated articles/host lists and this federal order. The web page notes that Mexfly was first found in central Mexico in 1863 and along the California-Mexico border by the early 1950s. Today, Mexfly continues to pose a serious threat for the Texas citrus industry and a wide range of other valuable U.S. crops.

Source: APHIS