03/31/06 Battling Reinfestation

Battling Re-infestation. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. An on-going tree fruit problem is finally getting a solution. Scientists at the Agricultural Research Service in Wapato, Washington have been working with fruit growers on a way to sanitize apple bins. Orchardists go to great lengths to deal with coddling moth problems in the orchards. The problem has been when they bring the bins back out at harvest time over-wintering larvae that are stick in corners or cracks mature to adults and re-infest the orchards. ARS entomologist Jim Hansen has been working with Auvil Fruit in Orondo and other manufacturers to develop an effective method of sanitizing the bins. Hansen said he hopes this new process would reduce the need for continual high pressure pest control. Walt Hough, Operations Manager of Auvil Fruit says the work has been successful. HOUGH: It's really easy, it's simple, it's inexpensive and also the side effect is that it gets somewhere near 90% of all the apple pathogens killed at the same time. So all the decay organisms that make your apples rot that you carry over in the bins from year to year, it takes care of those too. Hough describes the process. HOUGH: We've added a second process of water treatment to the bin after the fruit is out of it. We float the fruit out of the bin and then the bin comes out of that tank, we tip the bin upside down and then we run it through another hot water bath where the bin is submersed in water that is 165 degrees. Hough says in addition to being simple, safe, and effective, there's no chemicals involved. That's today's Northwest Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.