Brazil Mapa launches contingency plan against Codling moth

Brazil will strengthen the control to prevent the entrance and the establishment of the quarantine plague Codling moth (Cydia pomonella). The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa) published this Wednesday (10.28) a normative instruction with guidance for a contingency plan that establishes preventive and emergency actions to erradicate and contain the plague.

Other government agencies of phytosanitary control may also announce measures soon: the Plant Health Department and Mapa's General Coordination of International Agricultural Surveillance will also establish joint actions to prevent this quarantine plague.

"We will strengthen the enforcement actions and traffic control at ports, airports and border checkpoints, aiming to inspect agricultural products and regulated products that bring risks of introduction or come from places with occurrences of the Codling month, transported as cargo or passenger baggage,” said Mapa's Plant Health manager, Luís Rangel.

According to him, the ministry will take actions of phytosanitary education among farmers, technicians and throughout the urban populations with the goal of maintaining the status of eradicated plague in Brazil. “The surveillance measures will be adopted on host species of the plagues, at processing centers, distribution points and points of entrance, including the urban areas where the plague was eradicated,” affirms.

The Codling moth belongs to the Olethreutidae family, which is from Europe, and its larvae make tunnels in fruit. The adult plague has gray forewings with brown transversal lines and a large coppery brown spot in the apical portion of the wings. The primary hosts of the plague are apples, pear, quince and the European walnut. Stone fruits such as peach, plum, damask, cherry, and nectarine are considered secondary hosts.