Pupae Preparation
The Mediterranean Fruit Fly Exclusion Program has two Pupae Preparation trailers on site. The Crew Leader for each Prep trailer is responsible for receiving the shipments of the pupae and inspecting each sausage for evidence of proper irradiation and obtaining temperatures of the pupae from each box in the shipment. The Mediterranean Fruit Fly Exclusion Program receives approximately 36 boxes of pupae each day. The Crew Leader then empties each sausage into a paper bucket and removes a quality control sample from each bucket. Separate samples are collected from each laboratory’s shipment daily.
The employees then scoop 110 ml., approximately 6000, of pupae from the buckets into #12 paper bags which have had the top half of the bag cut off to make the bag shorter. The paper bags are then stapled twice along the open edge and transported to the incubation trailers for further processing.
