ARS | Publication request: Phytosanitary post-harvest treatments as an integral part of a systems approach for pest control

Submitted to: Meeting Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: September 26, 2008
Publication Date: November 8, 2008
Citation: Mangan, R.L. 2008. Phytosanitary post-harvest treatments as an integral part of a systems approach for pest control. Proceedings of the 32nd North American Plant Protection Organization (NAPPO) Annual Meeting, Guadalajara, Mexico. p. 5-10.

Technical Abstract: The concept of a systems approach to meet quarantine guidelines was developed in the early 1990s as an alternative to single post-harvest quarantine treatments. The systems approach is specifically designed to control pests and meet phytosanitary requirements established by importing countries. Pre-harvest control of pests was assumed when the statistical methods for quarantine treatments were first published in 1939. Computational methods to determine numbers of surviving pests expected under different combinations of pre-harvest and post-harvest treatments, have been developed which can be used with the systems approach. Methods for evaluating non- or poor host status have been included as components and several approaches have examined various assumptions about distribution of pests among commodities. The use of post-harvest treatments would seem to be less variable than pre-harvest controls, but there is ample historical literature showing that these controls can also fail. It is suggested that the systems approach for each commodity/pest combination will have unique characteristics and simple standard formulas are not likely to be available.