New quarantine procedure proposed by USA: its evaluation |
All apples (Malus domestica) and cherries (Prunus avium)
exported from the United States to Japan undergo quarantine treatments such as
fumigation and cold treatment to prevent the transport of codling moth, Cydia
pomonella (L.). As an alternative to these treatments, a procedure called
the systems approach has been proposed. This approach aims at achieving quarantine
security by integrating several protection efforts such as integrated pest management
(IPM), postharvest removal of infested fruits, and export sampling inspection
of consignments. The inspection suggested in this approach has 2 novel characteristics:
(1) the existence of injury marks such as worm holes as well as live insects is
used as a basis for the decision to reject the consignment, and (2) the sampling
inspection is repeated several times. We propose a method to estimate the efficiency
of this plant quarantine inspection, by assuming there is a constant probability
that a fruit with injury marks contains live insects. The hypothetical example
shows that the efficiency of sampling inspection is considerably improved by using
the existence of injury marks. It is, however, suggested that the sampling inspection
is not as effective as the quarantine treatments even if the existence of injury
marks is used.(Copyright by the Entomological Society of America)