Project Number: 5302-43000-034-11
Project Type: Trust

Start Date: May 01, 2010
End Date: Oct 31, 2012

Objective:
In order to identify cold storage treatments that are efficacious against spotted wing drosophila (SWD) the project seeks to determine the most cold-tolerant stage of SWD, develop lethal exposure (LT) times necessary to produce 95, 99 and 99.9863% mortality of the most cold tolerant stage of SWD exposed to commercial cold storage conditions (0.5-2.2C and 90-95% RH), and determine rate of survival of SWD after SO2/CO2 fumigation and 21 day exposure to commercial cold storage conditions.

Approach:
All SWD life-stages in artificial diet will be treated at 0.5C for 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 days following the guidelines for optimal cold storage of table grapes. Probit analysis will be used to calculate LT values and identify the most cold tolerant stage, which will be used to estimate LT values for 2.2C, using the methods described above. Large-scale confirmatory tests using grapes infested with the most cold tolerant SWD stage and held in standard commercial shipping boxes will be done at 0.5 and 2.2C using the optimal treatment times derived above. Grapes infested with SWD will be treated with SO2/CO2 at the levels and times currently used for export to Australia/New Zealand and then held at 0.5 and 2.2C for 7, 14, 21 and 28 days. In all tests, treatment temperatures will be recorded with data loggers.