Disinfestation

The concept of anoxic treatment is simple, and is the same for any anoxic gas used. It consists, essentially, of the following three steps  

Isolate the object from the oxygen-rich environment  

Replace the oxygen-rich air with an anoxic (oxygen-less) air to the desired residual oxygen level and 

Wait until the insects die and then remove the object from its anoxic environment. 

Whilst simple in concept, each step requires an understanding of environmental, physical and biological factors that may affect the procedure. Perhaps the most important of the three steps is isolation of the objects. Isolating an object requires construction of a suitable barrier around the object. This means any enclosure system must successfully maintain such a low level of oxygen for extended periods of time, ideally with a minimum of intervention and cost. The enclosure may be hard-walled or soft-walled. The soft-walled, e.g. heat-sealable oxygen barrier film, gives the flexibility to create any sized 

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Chellemi DO, Mirusso J (2006) Optimizing soil disinfestation procedures for fresh market tomato and pepper production. Plant Dis 90 668-674. doi 10.1094/PD-90-0668... 

Chen Y, Gamliel A, Stapleton JJ, Aviad T (1991) Chemical, physical, and microbial changes related to plant growth in disinfested soils. In Katan J, DeVay JE (eds) Soil Solarization. CRC, Boca Raton, FL, USA, pp 103-129... 

Giannakou IO, Anastasiadis IA, Gowen SR, Prophetou-Athanasiadou DA (2007) Effects of a nonchemical nematicide combined with soil solarization for the control of root-knot nematodes. Crop Prot 26 1644-1654. doi 10.1016/j.cropro.2007.02.003 Giblin-Davis RM, Verkade SD (1988) Solarization for nematode disinfestation of small volumes of soil. Ann Appl Nematol 2 41-5... 

Hartz TK, Boble CR, Bender DA, Avila FA (1989) Control of pink root disease in onion using solarization and fumigation. J Am Soc Hort Sci 114 587-590 Hartz TK, DeVay JE, Elmore CL (1993) Solarization is an effective soil disinfestation technique for strawberry production. Hortscience 28 104—106 Hasing JE, Motsenbocker CE, Monlezun CJ (2004) Agroeconomic effect of soil solarization on fall-planted lettuce (Lactuca sativa). Sci Hort 101 223-233. doi 10.1016/j.scienta.2003.11.001 Hasson AM, Hassaballah T, Hussain R, Abbass L (1987) Effect of solar soil sterilization on nitrification in soil. J Plant Nutr 10 1805-1809... 

Newhall AG (1955) Soil disinfestations of soil by heat, hot water, flooding and fumigation. Bot Rev 21 189-233... 

Rosskopf E, Chellemi DO, Kokalis-Burelle N (1999) Alternative soil disinfestations treatments for weed control. In Proceedings of the annual international research conference on methyl bromide alternatives and emissions reductions, San Diego, CA, 1-4 November 1999... 

CL (eds) Proceedings of the first international conference on soil solarization, Amman, Jordan, 19-25 February 1990. FAO Plant Protection and Production Paper 109, FAO, Rome, Italy Stapleton JJ (1997) Solarization an implementable alternative for soil disinfestation. In Canaday C (ed) Biological and cultural tests for control of plant diseases, vol 12. APS, St. Paul, MN, USA, pp 1-6... 

Stapleton JJ, Ferguson L, McKenry MV, Dougherty DS, Stapleton SC (1999) Using solarization to disinfest soil for olive nursery production. Acta Hort (ISHS) 474 589-594 Stapleton JJ, Prather TS, Mallek SB, Ruiz TS, Elmore CL (2002) High temperature solarization for production of weed-free container soils and potting mixes. HortTechnol 12 541-740... 

In Inderjit (ed) Weed biology and management. Springer, Berlin, pp 345-362 Yaron D, Regev A, Spector R (1991) Economic evaluation of soil solarization and disinfestations. 

To facilitate international export, mangos are usually disinfested from insect larvae by either chemical or heat treatment. Unfortunately, heat treatments severe enough to kill the larvae can also damage the skin and pulp (mesocarp). Pulp symptoms include impaired starch degradation and development of internal cavities, which are manifest in MRI. Spin-echo image contrast showed the initiation of heat injury around vascular traces in the mesocarp possibly because they form a network for rapid heat transfer and/or retain heat... 

Uses Soil, space, and food fumigant organic synthesis fire extinguishing agent refrigerant disinfestation of potatoes, tomatoes, and other crops solvent for extracting vegetable oils. 

Killing or sterilizing stored Insect disinfestation of food... 

Insect disinfestation of seed products, flours, fresh and dried fruits, etc. 0.2-0.8... 

Radiation disinfestation of stored food offers a viable alternative to chemical disinfestation without adverse effects on the product quality. The use of methyl bromide, the only broad-spectrum fumigant used for the disinfestation of stored products, was anticipated to be phased out by around 2001 [34], which highlights the urgency of an alternative treatment. 

Disinfestation of stored food by irradiation was extensively studied already in the 1960s and 1970s [9,35], and it has shown that radiation disinfestation can be efficiently applied to almost all dried foods. 

With the availability of inexpensive, convenient, and easily applied pest control methods based on application of pesticides, irradiation disinfestation has not yet received priority. Nevertheless, radiation disinfestation was performed on an industrial scale in the... 

The doses applied for the widely used microbial decontamination by irradiation of spices, dried herbs, and dry vegetable seasonings (see Sec. 4.9) are much higher than the disinfestation doses. Thus radiation decontamination of these commodities is more than enough to kill also any insects eventually infesting them. 

Dried fruits, vegetables, and nuts, as well as dried fish, an important source of protein in many developing countries, are also good candidates for radiation disinfestation. Application of 0.2-0.7 kGy doses, if they have been suitably packaged to prevent reinfestation, can eliminate the insect problem from these products that cannot be elfectively disinfested by either chemical or physical means other than irradiation. 

Radiation treatment can significantly contribute to the variety of means for quarantine disinfestation in the international trade to prevent the importation of invasive nonnative insects with food and agricultural commodities that can harbor them. The use of irradiation disinfestation in quarantine treatment has great potential especially against fruit flies. A number of past quarantine treatments have been recently prohibited, e.g., fumigation with ethylene dibromide. 

The Entomology of Radiation Disinfestation of Grain, Cornwell, P.B., Ed. Pergamon Press London, 1966. 

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