ABSTRACT
Phytosanitary quarantines are imposed on a wide variety of plants and plant products as a means to deter introductions of pathogens and pests. In contrast with the desirability of protecting agricultural and natural ecosystems from pests and exotics, quarantine implementation is associated with undesirable effects including restriction of commodity availability, increased costs, and decreased commodity quality. Quarantine treatments of fresh fruits and vegetables involve killing, removing, or preventing reproduction by an undesirable living organism on living host material. Even something so seemingly simple as assessing mortality can cause problems for quarantine treatment research. The temperatures used for quarantine treatments are on the border between temperatures which will not kill all insects in the amount of time used for treatments and those that might harm fresh commodities. A hot water treatment plus field management of several pests of red ginger flowers was also believed to provide export-level quarantine security.
