ABSTRACT
Hot water was first used in fruit fly quarantine programs in the US in 1953. Immersion in hot water has been used to disinfest banana, stone fruits, grapefruit, carambola, and guava of quarantine pests. In 1971, research was initiated in Hawaii to determine if the hot water treatment used for postharvest control of anthracnose on mangoes could be combined with low doses of ethylene dibromide and refrigeration to provide quarantine security against fruit fly immatures in Hawaii-grown mangoes. Use of hot water to control oriental fruit moth in stone fruits is limited by the tolerance of the fruit to heat injury. Walter P. Gould tried hot water immersion and refrigeration to determine the potential of the combined method as a quarantine treatment. The United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service has been the leader in the development of hot water dips to disinfest commodities of pests of quarantine importance.
