ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the use of combination/multiple treatments to reduce the probability of pest infestation. It discusses several statistical methods used to evaluate effectiveness of combination/multiple treatments. The chapter explains two general approaches to the development of combination/multiple treatments. One approach involved testing the treatments individually, calculating an expected mortality from the individual mortality data, and then confirming the predicted mortality at the 99.9968% mortality level. Another approach predicted optimum combinations of treatments from published research reports in the review. From the early 1970s to the 1980s, hot water dips followed by fumigation with ethylene dibromide were used as combination treatments that reduced postharvest fruit rots and killed Tephritidae immatures in fruits. Tropical fruits that could be damaged by single treatments such as gamma irradiation, vapor heat, or hot water immersion perhaps could be treated with combination/multiple treatments which would provide quarantine security and not damage the treated commodity.
