New Med Fly Quarantine Restricting Harvesting and Fruit Sharing in Central Santa Clara County
Another fruit fly quarantine has been imposed on August 22, 2025 for a large portion of central Santa Clara County that restricts any harvesting or movement of home-grown fruit and some vegetables from a large 170 square mile area. After several expansions, by September 29 the quarantine zone now covers most of San Jose, Santa Clara, Milpitas, and Campbell, and a portion of Los Gatos. From past experiences these quarantines last about 9 months (through May 2026) until no more flies are found.
To check if your location is restricted, the California Department of Food and Agriculture has a PDF map you can download and an interactive search which allows users to type in a specific address and find out they are inside or outside of the quarantine zone. At this time locations in Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Saratoga and further west are not affected.
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 fruit with anyone nor donate their fresh fruit either. Contact Village Harvest if you have additional questions.
Residents within the zone are advised not to move home grown fruits or vegetables off their property, but to consume or process at your home. The state requests 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 - jam, juiced, frozen, or cooked - but not fresh fruit or many veggies from within the zone.
The Mediterranean fruit fly is a short, squat fly about 1/4 inch in length with clear wings. Two Mediterranean fruit flies were discovered in early August, and a plant emergency quarantine zone of approximately 5 miles radius was established because of the difficulty of controlling the flies if they continue multiplying. The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is releasing millions of sterile flies and is also applying an organic fruit fly bait in the immediate vicinity of the found fly locations.
The fly lays eggs under the surface of most kinds of fruit, then the larvae go into the fruit and cannot be easily detected. The Mediterranean fruit fly has one of the widest host range of any pest fruit fly, and is considered the most important agricultural pest in the world. Affected plant hosts for this pest include most popular fruits grown in home gardens in our area (apples, apricots, all citrus types, figs, grapes, persimmons) and also popular vegetables including peppers and tomatoes (which are botanically fruits).