disinfestation can contribute significantly to improving trade in certain tropical and subtropical fruits, such as citrus fruit, mangoes, and papayas. Irradiation could be used in place of chemical fumigation, and it affords a residue-free means of preventing the introduction of harmful insects. As such, radiation treatment may offer a viable alternative to fumigation to satisfy the quarantine regulations in a number of countries. Fruit flies, for example, and even the weevil that lodges deep inside the seed of mango can be controlled by irradiation. (Note: the mango weevil cannot be reached by chemical or heat treatment; there is no alternative to irradiation.) Irradiation is different from all other quarantine treatments that have been used commercially in one key aspect: irradiation does not provide significant acute mortality (within 48 h) at doses tolerated by fresh agricultural commodities. However, irradiation is the fastest quarantine treatment available. The measure of efficacy of irradiation quarantine treatments for fruit flies is prevention of emergence of adult flies.