Entomologist Lisa G. Neven is providing practical, affordable techniques to packers to disinfest these premium fruits.
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Our search continues for new, safe, and powerful ways to disinfest fields where these crops are planted.
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The efficacy of the isolated phage to disinfest seed potato tubers artificially inoculated with a common scab-causing streptomycete was evaluated.
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This project aims to develop alternative lettuce-friendly postharvest quarantine treatments based on vacuum and controlled atmospheres to disinfest lettuce of insects.
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In studies, her group tried many combinations of temperature and incremental heating rates before settling on two optimal treatments to disinfest fruit.
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For cultural practices, the container-grown citrus can be treated with steam and soil solarization.Stapleton, J.J., C.L. Elmore, and J.E. DeVay. 2000. Solarization and biofumigation also help disinfest soil. California Agriculture.54:42-45.
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Another technique is Radiation Processing, involving the exposure of materials to ionizing radiation by either gamma radiation or electron beam.Abad, "Radiation Processed Materials from Natural Polymers for Agricultural, Health and Other Applications." n.d. The PNRI also practices "Irradiation for Food Safety and Quality": food irradiation prolongs the shelf-life of certain food and agricultural products, destroys counterproductive bacteria and microorganisms, and can disinfest grains such as rice and corn.De Guzman and Lanuza, n.d.
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However, cannas have a reputation for being difficult micropropagation candidates. Micropropagation techniques can be employed to disinfest plants of a virus. In the growing tip of a plant, cell division is so rapid that the younger cells may not have had time to be infected with the virus. The rapidly growing region of meristem cells producing the shoot tip is cut off and placed in vitro, with a very high probability of being uncontaminated by virus.
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Application of irradiation as a disinfestation procedure for fruit flies was suggested in 1930, however, it was only in 1986 that irradiation up to 1kGy was approved by the FDA as a method to disinfest arthropods in food. Before approval in the United States, Hawaii petitioned for permission of irradiation on papayas in 1972. The FDA finally approved the use of 1 kGy for use on arthropods in fruits and vegetables in 1986. In that same year, the first case of commercial phytosanitary irradiation occurred with Puerto Rican mangoes imported to the Florida market.
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Modern soil steam sterilization was first discovered in 1888 (by Frank in Germany) and was first commercially used in the United States (by Rudd) in 1893 (Baker 1962). Since then, a wide variety of steam machines have been built to disinfest both commercial greenhouse and nursery field soils (Grossman and Liebman 1995). In the 1950s, for example, steam sterilization technologies expanded from disinfestation of potting soil and greenhouse mixes to commercial production of steam rakes and tractor-drawn steam blades for fumigating small acres of cut flowers and other high-value field crops (Langedijk 1959). Today, even more effective steam technologies are being developed.
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