Mexican fruit fly quarantines 1,200 acres of RGV citrus

Over 1,200 acres of Rio Grande Valley citrus placed under new fruit fly quarantines

Mexican fruit flies on citrus fruit. Detections of the pest have prompted new quarantine zones in South Texas. Courtesy of | U.S. Department of Agriculture

The detection of Mexican fruit flies in two places in the Rio Grande Valley last month prompted quarantines for over 1,000 acres of South Texas commercial citrus orchards.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service and the Texas Department of Agriculture established a quarantine in La Feria after the detection of one Mexican fruit fly larva in a grapefruit collected in a commercial grove there on Dec. 3.

The detection of another larva in sour orange collected on a residential property in Peñitas triggered another quarantine zone there.

The Peñitas quarantine now encompasses about 53.2 square miles that contain almost 224 acres of commercial citrus, while the La Feria quarantine encompasses about 124.2 square miles and almost 971 acres of commercial citrus.