2023 Oriental Fruit Fly quarantine area Santa Clara County
Posted: September 5, 2023

Because of the discovery of oriental fruit flies central Santa Clara County, on September 1 the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) imposed a quarantine restricting any harvesting or movement of home-grown fruit and most vegetables from a  very large 112 square mile zone covering all of Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and Cupertino and portions of San Jose, Campbell, Los Gatos, Los Altos, Mountain View, and Milpitas.

Unfortunately Village Harvest is not permitted to do any harvesting of any type of fruit within the quarantine zone, and home tree owners are not permitted to share or donate their fresh fruit either. As updated by the county 9/6/2023, the quarantine is expected to end on June 1, 2024 but the actual date will depend on whether additional flies are found.

The Google Map at the bottom of this page can be zoomed in to identify the exact street boundaries of the quarantine zone. Santa Clara County has issued a press release, and CDFA Oriental Fruit Fly Quarantine page links to a 14 page Regulation document including a list of affected plants that covers everything Village Harvest picks and hundreds more. CDFA has an interactive search which allows users to type in a specific address and find out they are inside or outside of the quarantine zone. Good news is a report of "no results found." Contact Village Harvest if you have additional questions and we'll try to help.

Residents are advised not to move home grown fruits or vegetables off their property, but to consume or process at your home.  The state requires that fruit be disposed of by double-bagging them in plastic bags and putting the bags in the garbage bin for collection. (Do not dispose in yard waste or compost piles as this will spread or multiply the pest from infected fruit.) It's OK to give processed fruit products to friends - juiced, frozen, or cooked - but not fresh fruit or most veggies from within the zone.

This fly looks like a large house fly with a bright yellow body, and lays eggs under the surface of most kinds of fruit or vegetables. The larvae go into the fruit and cannot be easily detected from the outside. Based on the specific species, most likely the fruit flies were inside fruit smuggled from southeast Asia.