Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, intercepted important fruit pests from ships entering the country

The national emergency broadcasting network Wenzhou April 1 news (reporter Li Jia correspondent Cai Jun) reporter learned from the Wenzhou Inspection and Quarantine Bureau on April 1 that the bureau's quarantine personnel recently boarded a Panamanian "Global Mars" cargo ship to carry out boarding quarantine, found that there are many pests of the whitefly family on the edible pineapple in the food capsule, and then caught many adult insects and sent them to the laboratory for further identification. This is the second time in 2017 that the Wenzhou Inspection and Quarantine Bureau intercepted such pests in the food tank of an inbound ship.

The white-breasted insect family (Pseudococcidae) is a family of the family Homoptera. Females are oval-round, soft, waxy, with more pronounced body segments, and female adults have rings, ring bristles and mid- and small-shaped insects with gluteal flaps. Insects of this family are covered with white or milky yellow wax on the surface of the body, resembling a white powder cover, commonly known as whiteflies. There are about 220 genera and more than 1400 species known worldwide, many of which are important pests of tropical and subtropical cash crops, and often harm greenhouse cultivation plants in temperate zones. About 45 genera and 107 species are known in China.

A variety of pests in the family Mealybugs are quarantine pests in the genus Mealybug, Gray Mealybug, Oyster Shield, and Gluteal. Even if it is not included in the quarantine pest list, once it is included in the official protocol on the trade of certain fruits to China, it is a restricted pest of concern (RNQP), and the control measures are almost equivalent to quarantine pests: such as the banana mealybug intercepted from the Ecuadorian export of bananas to China at the Wenzhou port in early 2015.

In the past two years, the Wenzhou Inspection and Quarantine Bureau has repeatedly detected a variety of pests such as four-striped bean elephants, orange small fruit flies, corn elephants, and chizhi grain thieves from the food cabins of incoming ships, which has greatly improved the detection rate of animal and plant epidemics in means of transportation and effectively reduced the risk of foreign harmful organisms being introduced into China through ship-accompanying food.