The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1933-10-06
West Indian Fruit Fly AS
It Pertains To Key West

II
has begun to decay. The West
Indian fruit fly attacks only fruit
which is still on the trees and in
prime condition. The West Indian
fruit fly may cause the fruit to be
"wormy" before the fruit is thor
, oughly matured. Thus the West
Indian fruit fly may cause the
fruit to drop prematurely and pos
sibly bring about an almost COM
plete destruction of the crop. The
native insects never attack sound
fruit. The West Indian fruit fly
never attacks anything except per-
fectly sound fruit. 4
If given time to become thor
oughly established in Key West,
present indications are that the
West Indian fruit fly may possibly
attack practically every fruit
grown here, with the exception, of
course, of certain fruits like
lines and bananas. If allowed to
continue to live unmolested in Key
West, the flies may soon have the
fruits unfit to be eaten at certain
seasons of the year. Moreover,
with a continually increasing pop
ulation of flies, the insect may
soon spread to the mainland of
Florida where it would seriously
Interfere with the great fruit in
dustry of this state.
It is for the reasons mentioned
above that the wise thing to do is
to eradicate the West Indian. fruit
fly from the island. of Key West
before the insect has. had time to
build up a large population OF
flies. A program of eradication
has been formulated and is being
conducted by the state plant board
with advice and assistance from
the bureau of entomology and in
cidental aid from the bureau of
plant quarantine.
Briefly the eradication pro.
gram calls for the picking and
destruction of host fruits and fol-
| the spraying of all fruit-produc.
ing trees. Definite progress in
this work has been made by the
State Plant Board since the pro-
gram was undertaken about the
middle of August. To successfully
eradicate the West Indian fruit
fly, it viii be necessary to main
tain a fruit-free period for pos
sibly several months. It will also
be necessary to make several ap,
plications of spray material dur
ing the fall and winter months
possibly longer.
Mixture For Spraying
The material which is being
used to spray the trees Is a mix
lture of tartar emetic, nfolasses
and water. Numerous tests con
Quoted here at Key West have
demonstrated that a spray con-
sisting of tartar emetic, molasses
and water will rapidly and surely
kill the flies. Experiments have
shown that these materials at the
dosage used are not injurious to
foliage. Trees sprayed with these
materials are not injured in any
way. An experiment in which
chickens were given nothing to
drink for a period Of about 8
weeks except the spray solution
has shown that the materials, at
the dosage used, are not toxic to
chickens.
A serious situation today con-
fronts the people Of Key West.
There is every reason to believe
that the State Plant Board will
successfully eradicate the West
Indian fruit fly from the island OF
Key West if the people will con-
ltinue to cooperate. The residents
| Of Key West are requested to CO.
| Spetate III this eradieation cam
| paisn not oAaS hecHuse il is diFec-
Ikea aesiN y dFeaded tropical IN
sect pest but also because the
work has required the use Of I
number Of local people.
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