A team of scientists in South Australia are providing a powerful new line of defence against one of horticulture's most damaging pests.

The National Sterile Insect Facility in Port Augusta, is set to produce 50 million sterile male Queensland fruit flies a week by 2019.

The ambitious three-year project is all in a bid to safeguard the multi-billion dollar horticulture industry across South Australia and Victoria.

The Sterile Insect Technology (SIT) is the first insect pest control method that uses genetics, or a widescale form of insect birth control.

The technique involves breeding fruit flies and sterilising the males with an x-ray before they are released into an area with a wild population.

These sterile male flies are then released over infested areas, where they mate with wild females who eventually become outnumbered and die out.

The $45 million SITPlus initiative, led by Horticulture Innovation Australia, complements the state-of-the-art facility in Port Augusta, approximately 350 kilometres from Adelaide.

Program director Dan Ryan took SA Country Hour for an exclusive tour through the $3.8 million factory.

He said the whole process began in the egg collection room where the team was breeding up to 50 million flies per week.

"We've got males and females in here; [they] are in there to have sex, so this is the exciting room for the flies," he said.

"What we've got is a surface that the females can overposit or lay eggs into and then we collect those eggs, we put them on a larval tray where the eggs can hatch into larvae.

"Then the larvae mature and they go to a pupal rearing room, [where] we raise the pupae. They mature inside the pupae which is just a little shell."

Flies in the SIT facility are marked with a bright pink dye so they can be identified in the wild.

(ABC Rural: Courtney Fowler)

Flies in the SIT facility are marked with a bright pink dye so they can be identified in the wild.

ABC Rural: Courtney Fowler

Mr Ryan said once the flies leave the pupal rearing room, they were covered with a distinctive dye so they could be easily identified in the wild.

"We mark the pupae because we need to know when we get out in the wild; is this a fly that's come from a factory and is sterile or is this a wild fly," he said.

"So what we do is cover them with a bright iridescent dye on the pupae, then the fly comes out of the pupae and gets covered in dye.

"We do have back-up processes to identify them; in the very rare occurrence that there is no dye on a fly we have two tests which will verify it."

Mr Ryan said from the dye-marking room, the flies are x-rayed and ready for release into the wild.

"We all think of x-rays with broken arms but these flies are getting x-rays to become sterile," he said.

"It's a very low dose of x-ray because as you can imagine, it doesn't take much to make a fly sterile but we have a 100 per cent success rate.

"[On release] these sterile flies go out and trick the wild females and the population crashes, it's a horrible trick on the wild female flies but is all part of protecting horticulture in Australia."

The larvae mature inside the pupae inside a little shell in the pupal rearing room.

(ABC Rural: Courtney Fowler)

The larvae mature inside the pupae inside a little shell in the pupal rearing room.

ABC Rural: Courtney Fowler

Queensland fruit fly destroys an estimated $300 million of fruit and vegetable crops every year.

Mr Ryan said the SIT program was a 'game-changer' for management of the Queensland fruit fly across south eastern Australia.

Queensland fruit flies destroys an estimated $300 million dollars of fruit and vegetable crops every year.

(ABC: Laurissa Smith)

Queensland fruit flies destroys an estimated $300 million dollars of fruit and vegetable crops every year.

He said the facility would not only ensure South Australia's remains fruit fly-free but would also help reduce populations across the country.

"South Australia markets horticulture overseas based on freedom from Queensland fruit fly, that's worth a lot of money to the industry," he said.

"If they lost that market access it would really impact the value of their businesses, so this is all about protecting those businesses.

"Another use is for areas where you have large isolated farms, so a good example of that might be Hillston NSW, where you've got a collection of large citrus farms and a cherry farms.

"It's a great place to put that pressure down and perhaps establish longer term another pest-free area.

"The third use is helping farmers in endemic areas manage the flies; one of the problems growers have is they can manage the fly on their farm but they're always getting reinvasion from off the farm."

SIT program director Dan Ryan says the facility aims to breed 50 million flies per week by 2019.

(ABC Rural: Courtney Fowler)

SIT program director Dan Ryan says the facility aims to breed 50 million flies per week by 2019.

ABC Rural: Courtney Fowler

Biosecurity SA executive director Will Zacharin said the facility in Port Augusta was putting South Australia on the world map in Sterile Insect Technology.

A close up picture of a Queensland fruit fly.

(Clint Jasper)

A close up picture of a Queensland fruit fly.

"It's the first purpose-built fruit-fly facility in Australia, to make sure that we could significantly ramp up the number of flies that we could get out of the factory," he said.

"This [will enable us] to provide flies right across south eastern Australia for those areas that need it.

"This is moving from a solution in a can and just trying to use chemicals to control a problem, to using new innovative technology in terms of sterile insects.

"It's going to be more long-term, it's going to be good for the producer, it's going to be good for the environment [and] its going to be good for consumers."

Mr Zacharin said he was confident the program could help other major horticultural regions across southern NSW and Victoria strive towards becoming fruit fly-free.

"We've looked at facilities overseas that produce up to a billion flies a week, so on world terms this is a small facility," he said.

"But it's about demonstrating to industries and communities that releasing sterile flies is a better way to go in the long-term.

"If we can prove this works very well in the Australian environment, there's no reason why we can't push fruit fly freedom from where we are in SA, right across the Murray corridor, into southern NSW and Victoria.

"That will increase productivity for growers and will also give them better access to international markets."

South Australia is the only mainland State which remains fruit fly free in the country.

(ABC: Damien Hooper)

South Australia is the only mainland State which remains fruit fly free in the country.

The SITPlus program is led by Horticulture Innovation Australia, in partnership with Primary Industries and Regions SA, South Australian Research and Development Institute, Victorian Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources, CSIRO, Plant and Food Research Australia, NSW Department of Primary Industries and Macquarie University.

More:
How Sterile Insect Technology could combat one of horticulture's most damaging pests - ABC Online

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