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[Music plays]
(Narrator) Australia’s horticultural industry
is worth $6.9 billion each year,
with strong interest in Aussie fruit
from a wide range of international markets.
But a tiny little pest is taking a large bite out of that,
costing growers hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
That pest is the Queensland fruit fly, or Q-Fly,
and it has a nasty reputation.
(Dr Paul De Barro) There are a large number
of fruit producers in Australia,
from Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia,
Western Australia, all who depend on
exports of fruit,
either interstate or overseas.
Queensland fruit fly threatens all of that.
(Narrator) Q-Fly is a native pest occurring throughout eastern Australia
and the Northern Territory.
Female Q-Flies lay their eggs inside the fruit,
scarring the surface.
When those eggs hatch the larvae eat the flesh of the fruit,
making it unsalable.
(Dr Paul De Barro) Many, many hundreds of millions of dollars
is consumed each year in terms of either management of fruit fly,
maintaining fruit fly areas,
and that costs growers, it costs industry,
it costs governments money.
(Narrator) As a result CSIRO researchers
have now placed this elusive species firmly in their sights
in a bid to reduce their numbers
and the impact they have on Australian growers.
(Dr Paul De Barro) Despite Queensland fruit fly
being the most important pest of horticulture
fruit and vegetable production,
we actually know remarkably little about it,
especially about what it does, its biology and ecology in the field.
(Narrator) In order to learn more CSIRO will be using tiny sensors
placed on the fruit fly to monitor where they go
and where they breed.
If they can learn the habits and behaviours of this destructive pest
they can develop control measures that cut them off at the source.
(Dr Gary Fitt) What this technology will allow us to do,
because we better understand
the insect’s perception of the environment,
is to optimise where we put traps in landscapes
to have a better chance of early detection of an invasive pest.
(Narrator) It will also provide insights
into where these insects breed,
allowing researchers to release sterile males into those areas,
preventing them from reproducing.
(Dr Paul De Barro) Reducing the damage it causes,
reducing the costs associated with loss of market access,
it has the potential to enable us to export
our fruit and vegetables to more countries
because we’ll be better able to show that our growers
are producing fruit which don’t have the fruit fly present.
(Narrator) But CSIRO’s research doesn’t stop here.
The next generation of sensors will generate power from insect movement,
store the energy in batteries being developed at CSIRO,
and will have some tracking capability
to follow the insect’s movements in real time.
[Music plays]