Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2012
Introduction. Quarantine heat treatments have not yet beenintroduced in West Africa and no work has been done to determine the treatment conditionsneeded to eliminate eggs and larvae of West African fruit fly populations, especially ofthe new species Bactrocera invadens, from mangoes produced in the region.The objective of our study was to carry out hot water disinfestation experiments onnaturally infested mangoes to determine the exposure parameters required to kill eggs andlarvae of B. invadens present in commercial-quality fruits. The effects of hot watertreatment on fruit quality were also investigated. Materials and methods. Atank with a heating element and a water pump equipped with a tank sensor were used.Physiologically mature, hard, green mango fruits (cv. Kent) with potential export qualitybut infested by B. invadens were harvested from plantations in theBobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso) area. The effect of hot water treatment by immersion at42.0 °C, 46.5 °C or 51.0 °C was evaluated by counting identifiable sites of fruit flyoviposition before and after paring the fruit and, finally, the numbers of live and deadlarvae of B. invadens were counted in the pulp. The quality of the fruitwas evaluated after the hot water immersion. Results and discussion. A hotwater treatment resulting in a core temperature of 46.5 °C could be the basis of a fruitfly quarantine treatment for West African mangoes produced in Burkina Faso. All of thelarvae extracted from the fruits treated at 46.5 °C and 51.0 °C were dead, while, in fruittreated at 42.0 °C, only about one-third of the larvae extracted were dead.