The rise and demise of control options for fruit fly in Australia

•Century of pesticides.•Pesticides have come and gone.•Pesticide use restricted.•Systems approach is the future.

For several decades, control of fruit fly pests in Australia has depended to a large degree on dimethoate, a broad-spectrum organophosphate insecticide that has been widely used on many different crops as well as on ornamental plants. However, many dimethoate use patterns were withdrawn in 2011 following a review by regulatory authorities. This manuscript places dimethoate in context as the latest in a long line of pre-harvest pesticides such as the arsenics, tartar emetic, sodium fluosilicate, nicotine sulphate, the organochlorines, and organophosphates, that have been lost from the fruit fly control toolkit over the past century. The succession of postharvest treatments such as fumigants, dips and sprays is also examined. Dimethoate and fenthion have offered relatively easy and cost effective pest control solutions since the 1960s, but in the absence of equivalent alternatives it is now necessary to develop “systems approaches” based on multiple control strategies and risk assessment. Such approaches represent a fundamental shift in pest management strategy, and will require improved understanding of fruit fly biology to prevent infestation in the field, combined with postharvest surveillance and non-chemical treatments. Some options are briefly discussed.