With the completion of vintage 2021, Vinehealth advises that we are no longer posting updated fruit fly maps on our website under the ‘Current Outbreaks’ section. Instead, we refer you to PIRSA’s website for these maps and other industry information.

We are however maintaining a watching brief on the end quarantine dates related to all outbreaks and keep these current here for the Riverland and here for metro Adelaide. Any fruit fly life stage detections from now until the end of August will result in only minor changes to end quarantine dates. For all current outbreaks, these end quarantine dates are already into December 2021.

A small number of the Fruit Fly Affected Area boundaries have continued to extend with detections of adult flies and larvae since the completion of vintage, notably Campbelltown in metropolitan Adelaide and Renmark West and Cooltong in the Riverland. Baiting, hygiene, Sterilise Insect Technology (SIT) release and trapping continue to be PIRSA’s strong focus areas to ensure eradication can be achieved.

Upon reflection, timing is everything. The impact of the metropolitan Adelaide fruit fly outbreaks on Adelaide Hills vineyards and their receiving wineries during vintage 2021 had the potential to be far more significant than it was, had the suspension area boundary continued to extend in an easterly direction. A recent change to the Campbelltown Fruit Fly Affected Area (the eastern-most outbreak) has extended both the outbreak and suspension boundaries southward. Had this instead occurred in an easterly direction and in the middle of vintage, impacts at the time and potentially at the start of the next vintage period would be greater.

Nearing the end of the year and as we start to prepare for vintage 2022, we will resume mapping the Fruit Fly Affected Areas over our vineyard layer. We will also undertake a range of preparedness activities so industry can be better prepared to manage fruit fly requirements in the lead up to and in early stages of vintage 2022.

We continue to attend the weekly industry fruit fly teleconference with PIRSA and will provide any relevant updates to industry from these meetings.