Effect of Hot-Water Treatment in the Mortality of Fruit Fly Eggs S.M.J. Vieira and B.C. Benedetti Universidade Estadual de Campinas Faculdade de Engenharia Agrícola 13083-875, Campinas, SP Brasil A. Raga and M.F. Souza Filho Instituto Biológico de Campinas 13094-430, Campinas, SP Brasil Keywords: minimal processing, storage, temperature Abstract This work was carried out to verify hot water treatment efficiency on the mortality of Ceratitis capitata eggs. The following combinations of temperatures and immersion times were applied using a bi-factorial design: temperatures of 25°C (control ), 42, 44, 46, 48 and 50°C, and immersion times of 0, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 90 min. Eight replicates were evaluated for each treatment, each one containing 20 eggs, with a maximum age of 24 hours, separated by electron microscope, placed in porcelain crucibles (capacity of 50 ml) containing 10 ml of distilled water. After the treatment, the eggs were removed, transferred to petri dish plates and stored in B.O.D. at 25°C. After 24 hours of the process, the plates were evaluated for the mortality of eggs. According to the results, we concluded that C. capitata eggs were tolerant to hot water up to 44°C for 20 min. Therefore, the use of temperatures equal to or above 46°C for 20 min or more promoted 100% of mortality. The mortality of C. capitata eggs increased with the increase of the temperature and exposition time. INTRODUCTION Today, Brazil has the third largest fruit culture region in the world, and an immense potential to improve this position in the international market. The Ministry of Agriculture, Cattle Farming and Supplying, and also the producers of this sector have invested in the fruit culture system of a high standard of quality and health (MAPA, 2007). Actually, the Brazilian production is destined mainly to the domestic market because of phytosanitary barriers of importing countries. The fight to eradicate the fruit fly is one of biggest problems and also the possible contamination of the fruits from chemical products. The international transport of fruit, a potential host of fruit fly, has been the subject of a lot research aiming at determining quarantine techniques intended to avoid the development of such insects in geographical areas which are free of them. Applied in a precise and rigorous way, quarantine methods have reduced the development of the fruit fly. However, with the increase in transport and commercial exchange, quarantine barriers have become difficult to maintain and new flies are very often introduced; since 1980, a great number of them has been especially observed in the United States (Collin et al., 2007). The most frequent flies in Brazil are the Anastrepha and Ceratitis. The fruit fly of the Mediterranean (Ceratitis capitata) is one of the most significant economically. In some cases it compromises up to 90% of the fruit production, for attacking parts of the reproduction systems, fruits pulps and flowers of the plants (Dória et al., 2004). In an attempt to minimize the use of chemical control, to promote a longer period of use for the product, and to increase exports, research with the use of methods for physical treatment is being carried out. These have focused on heat, cold, irradiation, controlled atmospheres, or combinations of several of these (Vieira, 2004). For immersion in hot water, also called hydrothermal treatment, the time and temperature couple is variable according to the fruit and the parasite to be eliminated; hot-water immersions of perishable goods, to be officially approved and satisfactory against fruit fly in particular, must allow a rise in temperature in the fruit centre varying between 43.0 and 46.7ºC with durations ranging between 35-90 mins (Collin et al., 2007). An international 1525 Proc. 6 th International Postharvest Symposium Eds.: M. Erkan and U. Aksoy Acta Hort. 877, ISHS 2010