This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English AgricultureReport.

Fruit flies can damage four-hundred kinds of crops. These insectslay eggs not just in fruit but also vegetables and nuts. The youngeat the produce, making it unusable. A female can lay a thousandeggs in her short lifetime.

One of the most destructive kinds of fruit flies is theMediterranean fruit fly. California, for example, has spent almostthirty years fighting to keep the medfly out of the state.

Even islands far out at sea are not protected. The state ofHawaii has a history of problems with imported pests. The medflycame to Hawaii in the early nineteen-hundreds. Since then, threemore kinds of fruit fly pests have arrived.

The Agricultural Research Service of the Department ofAgriculture has a team to deal with the problem. The United StatesPacific Basin Agricultural Research Center is located in Hilo,Hawaii.

The center has designed a program that aims to keep damage belowan economically important level. Lost markets now cost Hawaiiangrowers an estimated three-hundred-million dollars a year. RogerVargas is an expert on insects. He started what is called the HawaiiArea-Wide Fruit Fly Integrated Pest Management program. The teamsays this program is showing success after three years.

Past campaigns tried to kill all the fruit flies. The new programattacks the problem through a series of steps. One is to stop fruitfly reproduction. Infertile male flies are released to mate with thewild population. Also, growers are told to bury all unharvestedfruit or vegetables. Or they can place them under a screeningstructure to keep young flies from escaping.

The program in Hawaii also uses a biological pesticide to killfruit flies. It is called spinosad. It is produced by a microscopicorganism. Spinosad is put into a substance that the fruit flies liketo eat. The researchers say this is better for the environment thanthe common pesticide malathion. Malathion is a chemical that issprayed on crops.

The program also uses a natural enemy of fruit flies. A kind ofwasp called Biosteres arisanus feeds on medflies and oriental fruitflies.

As Kim Kaplan of the Agricultural Research Service reported lastmonth, growers in the program like the results so far. They say theyare using less pesticide. And they say they are finding less damagedfruit. Officials have extended the program for two more years.

This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by MarioRitter. This is Steve Ember.