Invading Medfly

Southern Florida was in something like a state of emergency last week, with officials in a tizzy, scientists swarming into the area, and federal money arriving in million-dollar lots. Cause of the uproar: the Mediterranean fruit fly, which seems to have hopped the Caribbean by airplane from Central America.

The "Medfly" is no laughing matter. Its last visit in 1929 cost millions. It was eradicated in 18 months, but only after 75% of Florida's citrus crop had been destroyed. This year's crop is practically all harvested, but if the fly hangs around until next year, it will get a crack at a crop worth half a billion.

Florida and federal authorities are taking no chances. The fly was reported first on April 14 by Orlo L. Prior of Miami, who found a maggoty grapefruit in his backyard. Not until April 22 was the discovery publicly announced, and by then the fly had made considerable progress. It has now moved northward into Palm Beach County, and has been reported from Alcoma, in the citrus belt.

Motorists driving north must now pass roadblocks where inspectors search cars for plants or fruit that might harbor Medflies. All such stuff is confiscated, but owners of fruit are allowed to pull over and eat their contraband. Human gastric juices kill Medfly larvae (one couple last week ate nine melons). Fruit not disposed of in this way is doused with insecticide and buried 3 ft. deep.

This week a dozen airplanes will start spraying 190,000 acres of the gold coast with malathion, a chemical that kills insects but is not deadly to humans, birds or animals. Jeeps with blowers will fog infested trees. The ground on infested property will be treated to kill the larvae as they enter the soil to pupate. Mop-up squads will catch straggling flies in traps baited with yeast.

Florida's Governor LeRoy Collins is "cautiously optimistic" that three good sprayings will bring the fly under control, but William L. Popham, head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Plant Pest

Control Branch, is not so sure. What everybody fears is that the flies will survive until a hurricane brushes southern Florida and its winds carry them over the whole state and much of the U.S.

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