Quarantine Seen as Medfly Finds Rise : Agriculture: Number of insects found in Camarillo climbs to 33, as growers and packers stop shipping under a temporary ban.

As the count of Medflies found in Camarillo rose Monday to 33, growers and packers in the infested area began shutting down shipping operations under a temporary ban expected to be followed by an official quarantine by Wednesday.

The temporary ban and expected quarantine come at the tail end of the citrus and avocado season, with the majority of the fruit already harvested and shipped.

But agriculture officials said long-term financial impacts of the quarantine were still expected to hit hard, with the lucrative Japanese export market virtually sure to shut out the quarantine area and possibly more of the county.

“On Friday, we were hoping it would be just a couple of flies,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “But with the finds we’ve had since then, there is no question we are dealing with an infestation.”

On Monday, authorities confirmed that 31 more Medflies were trapped Sunday in an orange grove at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, within a quarter-mile of the fig tree where two fertile female flies were trapped Friday.

The 31 Medflies, all wild males, were trapped Sunday with a pheromone lure that typically attracts males. The females were caught with a food lure, which appeals to hungry females ready to lay eggs.

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More flies trapped Monday were considered suspicious and sent to a Sacramento laboratory for confirmation, a spokesman said. No details were available on how many flies were sent off or where they were found, but officials expected to know today whether they, too, were Mediterranean fruit flies.

The additional find guaranteed a quarantine for the area, officials said, with California Secretary of Food and Agriculture Henry Voss expected to sign the order today or Wednesday.

Extensive trapping efforts will continue this week to determine the spread of the infestation, said Douglas Hendrix, a spokesman with the Cooperative Medfly Project, a task force made up of state and federal agriculture officials.

“So far, it’s all within a quarter-mile, so that leads us to believe at this point that it’s a localized outbreak,” he said of the 31 additional flies.

Unless more Mediterranean fruit flies are found farther from the original site, the quarantine area will probably encompass 81 square miles, emanating about 4.5 miles in all directions from the site of the original find, Hendrix said.

The choices for wiping out the infestation are ground or aerial spraying of the pesticide malathion or releasing sterile male flies to mate with wild females. However, there are no sterile flies available at present, a state Department of Food and Agriculture spokeswoman said Monday.

No decisions on aerial spraying have yet been made, but Gov. Pete Wilson would have to declare an emergency before Voss could order aerial spraying, a Wilson spokesman said.

“We’re still in the fact-finding stage,” said Carla Agar, a spokeswoman with the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “But clearly, aerial spraying is an option that we have to consider.”

Some residents and home organic growers in the area are already upset as the possibility of overhead spraying looms.

Corey Deeter, a Thousand Oaks resident and a member of the Conejo Valley Organic Garden Club, said she and other area residents oppose it and would seek help from organized groups in Los Angeles County to mount resistance to spraying.

“It doesn’t work, and it’s the most expensive alternative there is,” she said. “We don’t want to make the same mistake that Los Angeles County made.”

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Since Saturday, officials have been notifying growers, packers, shippers, nurseries and produce stand operators within the possible quarantine area that a temporary halt to shipping of all host produce is in effect until the extent of the infestation is determined.

Grower Craig Underwood said inspectors spoke with him Monday, giving him instructions on how to handle sales at his roadside fruit stand. His 150 acres of lemons are picked and shipped for this year, so his concern, he said, is more for the long term.

The growers are all “holding their breath,” he said. “It’s like you’re walking on a tightrope.”

Fruits and vegetables that are host to the Medfly include lemons, oranges, avocados, cherimoya, grapefruit and tomatoes and account for billions of dollars in income to Ventura County growers. Strawberries, celery and lettuce, also important crops in the county, are not considered hosts.

Japan--which annually buys about a third of the county’s highest-quality fruit--will not accept imports from a quarantined area, regardless of whether the produce has been treated and cleared for shipment by state inspectors, a spokesman with the Cooperative Medfly Project said.

Japan could also decide to ban imports from the entire county, the farm bureau’s Laird said.

“We just don’t know yet what the foreign countries will do to us,” he said.

Tom Peck, president of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, said it may not matter what boundaries are set for the quarantine. “If Japan gets involved, it doesn’t matter how close you are (to the quarantine area), because they’re not going to say ‘Oxnard’ or ‘Camarillo.’ They’re going to say ‘Ventura County.’ And that’s what worries everybody most.”

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New Zealand and Australia already have banned shipments from Ventura County, because it is within 50 miles of Medfly finds in Los Angeles County, said Alan Voorhees, who manages the 80 acres of citrus groves for St. John’s Seminary.

But Voorhees said the timing was as good as it could be for a disaster to hit.

“If it had to happen, for citrus and avocado, this is a much better time than if it had happened in February or March when we would be right in the peak of our largest harvesting.”

Joanna M. Miller is a Times staff writer, Julie Fields is a correspondent.

Medfly Life Cycle Thirty-three wild Medflies have been found near Camarillo since Thursday. In warm-weather, it can take as little as 2.5 weeks for a female Medfly to hatch and lay its own eggs. The cycle takes longer in cooler weather. 1. The adult female pierces the skin of the fruit with a needle like tube and deposits one to 10 eggs inside. Other Medflies may deposit eggs in the same puncture, and up to several hundred eggs have been found in a single spot. The eggs hatch two to three days after being laid. 2. The eggs hatch into legless larvae that feast on the fruit, tunneling throughout the pulp. The larvae continue to feed for six to 10 days, shedding their outer skin several times as they grow. 3. The spoiled fruit then falls to the ground and the mature larvae crawl into the dry, upper layer of soil or into leaves on top of the soil. There, they continue to evolve within a cocoon like outer layer called a puparium. 4. Six to 15 days later, the adult fly emerges and must feed before reaching sexual maturity. The female begins laying eggs four to five days later. If temperatures are cooler, the flies will take longer to emerge from the puparium and longer to mature. Source: University of California Cooperative Extension Office

Quarantine Overview

* BOUNDARIES: Quarantine boundaries are being drawn up by federal and state agriculture officials. The most likely area will encompass 81 square miles within about a 4.5-mile radius of the site.

* DECISION: Once a quarantine is imposed, officials will decide how to eradicate the Medflies and treat produce grown within the infested area to allow it to be shipped.

* TREATMENT: Host fruit or vegetables within the area will be put in cold storage for a certain period, sprayed with pesticide or fumigated at growers’ expense, officials said. Agriculture inspectors then must clear the produce for shipment before it can leave the area.

* SHIPPING: After the produce is cleared, it can be shipped to any area worldwide that will accept it.