CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SAN BERNARDINO : Fruit, Vegetable Quarantine Urged

Agriculture authorities want to impose a quarantine over more than 100 square miles in three counties to combat an infestation of Oriental fruit flies. Pending the formal quarantine, the state Department of Food and Agriculture is asking residents not to move fruit and vegetables from the area, which includes Upland, Chino, Claremont, Fontana, Ontario--including the airport--Rancho Cucamonga, Pomona and Montclair. Residents are asked to keep all fruits and vegetables on their property, and commercial shipment of produce is subject to the quarantine as well, said spokesman Larry Cooper. Authorities also plan to apply a “sex lure” bait on trees and utility poles to eradicate male flies. Bait stations will be set up in a 65-square-mile area surrounding sites where fruit flies were recently trapped. The Oriental fruit fly deposits eggs inside more than 250 types of host plants, including citrus, persimmons, tomatoes, plums and apples.