They suggested that preharvest control measures such as field sanitation could enhance the quality of marketable fruit by allowing the use of less damaging schedules of post harvest quarantine treatments. These parasites lay their eggs in the eggs or maggots of fruit flies and emerge in the pupal stage. Only three, Opius longicaudatus var. These parasites are primarily effective on the oriental and Mediterranean fruit flies in cultivated crops. Symptoms are not easily detected until the adult stage when infected individuals are sluggish, have dropping wings and distended abdomen, and poor to no flying ability.
Death primarily occurs during late pupation.
Insecticide bait sprays are applied either to the crops to be protected, to the plants with which the adults are closely associated, or to both. Proteinaceous liquid attractants in insecticide sprays is a recommended method of controlling adult Oriental fruit fly populations in the vicinity of crops. The bait insecticide sprays are applied to broad leaf plants that serve as refugia for Oriental fruit fly adults. To be effective, bait-insecticide sprays must be used in combination with good sanitation practices. These practices include destruction of unmarketable fruit on every harvest date, and destruction of crop residues immediately after economic harvest has been completed.