Fruit fly and stink bug season: what to ask and record at the orchard gate

During the high-risk season, add a few questions to your usual gate routine about where each vehicle and piece of equipment has just been, including any imports, and give everyone a clear instruction on what to do if they see something unusual. Record the answers, because a record of who arrived and what they said is what you would use to trace movements if a pest were found.

Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) says the 2026/27 high-risk season for exotic fruit flies and brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) runs from 1 September 2026 to the end of April 2027, and reports no detections so far. This guide builds on the routine in Biosecurity at the orchard gate, which covers the everyday arrival questions and how pests travel between orchards. It does not repeat them.

How these pests could arrive

KVH's BMSB page says the bug can hitchhike on inanimate objects such as cars and shipping containers. KVH's October update says Biosecurity New Zealand follows up every border and post-border BMSB detection to confirm no further bugs are present and to identify likely entry pathways, such as recent travel or imported goods.

That is the reason to add two questions to the gate. They ask about the same pathways official responders look at first: recent travel, and goods or vehicles that came from overseas.

What to ask at the gate this season

Keep your usual arrival questions. Add these for the high-risk season, and keep each one short, with a clear yes or no where you can.

1. Has this vehicle, machinery or equipment been imported, or come from a port or container yard, recently? Ask this of contractors and suppliers in particular. A yes is a prompt for a conversation before the vehicle goes further in.
2. Have you arrived in New Zealand from overseas recently? Ask for a yes or no only. You do not need the country or the dates to act on it, and collecting less personal detail is better.
3. Have you seen any insect on your vehicle, equipment or bins that you do not recognise? This lets you hear about it at the gate, before the vehicle goes on to the packhouse or the next property.

Also brief every crew leader on the two numbers in the section on reporting below, so they know who to call before they need to.

How you respond to a yes is for your biosecurity plan to set. Record the answer, and follow up before the person starts work. If your plan says the vehicle needs cleaning first, do it at the gate.

A short question records a declaration. It does not check that anything is clean, or that nothing is hiding on or in a vehicle.

What to record

For the high-risk season, a useful arrival record answers who, when, from where and what, in a form you can search afterwards.

• Who, and for which crew or company.
• When they arrived and left.
• Where they came from that day, and the last property they worked on.
• What they answered to the extra questions above.
• What you did about it, if an answer raised a concern.
• Anything reported while on site. The date, the time, where on the property it was seen, who saw it and who you told.

Keep the records for at least as long as your biosecurity plan or audit scheme asks. If a pest turns up on your property or a neighbour's, the people responding will want to know who visited and from where.

What to do if someone sees something unusual

Report it straight away rather than waiting until the end of the day.

• Biosecurity New Zealand's exotic pest and disease hotline: 0800 80 99 66. It also has an online report form.
• KVH: 0800 665 825. It also has an online form to report anything unusual.

Biosecurity New Zealand asks you to contact it as soon as you find something, and to photograph and catch it if that is safe. Its photography tips are to place the finding against a white background and include a common object for scale, such as a 10 cent piece.

KVH publishes a fruit fly ID poster and a shield bug ID guide that covers unwanted exotic species. Use them to brief your team and contractors before the season gets busy.

KVH also publishes a guide for growers on the likely sequence of events if a fruit fly response happened in a kiwifruit growing region. It is worth reading before you need it.

Where things stand

These are the kiwifruit industry's figures. KVH runs biosecurity monitoring for kiwifruit and publishes them in its October 2026 risk updates, which report on 1 to 30 September 2026, and in its 5 November 2026 news item.

• No detections so far. KVH reports no exotic fruit fly detections and no live BMSB detections in New Zealand in the September reporting period. Its 5 November news item says there have been no detections to date this season.
• Fruit flies are the kiwifruit industry's top concern. KVH says incursions "can severely impact where we sell our fruit". It names the Queensland fruit fly as the one with the most market impacts and the highest risk of entry, because it is native to Australia.
• BMSB is also a leading threat. KVH describes it as one of the greatest threats to the kiwifruit industry and to many other horticultural industries. It is native to parts of Asia, is established in North America and much of Europe, and has been detected in Chile.
• The pests are watched for already. KVH reports about 9,000 fruit fly pheromone traps checked fortnightly nationwide, and about 300 BMSB traps, including in the Bay of Plenty. KVH adds its own BMSB trapping at high-risk sites in seven regions.

Both of KVH's October risk updates give the end of April 2027 as the end of the season. KVH's fruit fly web page says September to June. This guide uses the risk updates' dates, because they are the season-specific documents.

These pests matter beyond kiwifruit. KVH describes BMSB as a threat to many horticultural industries. Growers of other crops should check their own industry body's list of most unwanted pests.

How GateBud helps

GateBud™ is QR visitor check-in for orchards. You can use it to add these season questions and keep the answers with each arrival.

• You set the check-in questions for each site. A choice question can ask the yes or no questions above, and a short-answer question can ask where someone came from today.
• Visitors and contractors scan a QR code at the gate and answer on their phone. No app, password or account.
• Your biosecurity instructions can be shown as a document at check-in. GateBud saves the exact version each person confirmed.
• The Visitor log shows who came onto which site and when, with their answers. Filter by site and date range, and export as PDF or CSV.

Change the questions at the start of the season and take them out when it ends. GateBud records the answers people give. It does not check that a vehicle is clean or that nothing is hiding on it, and it does not tell you what a yes means for your plan.

If you grow kiwifruit, GateBud for kiwifruit orchards covers the KVH and Zespri questions at the gate.

For the safety side of the same record, read Visitor and contractor sign-in on NZ orchards.

Sources

Sources checked on 6 November 2026, and re-checked on 8 November 2026. This guide reports what KVH and Biosecurity New Zealand say. It does not tell you how any rule applies to your own orchard.

• Kiwifruit Vine Health, Fruit fly risk update, October 2026.
• Kiwifruit Vine Health, BMSB risk update, October 2026.
• Kiwifruit Vine Health, Fruit flies, including the 5 November 2026 news item "Stopping our most unwanted".
• Kiwifruit Vine Health, Brown marmorated stink bug.
• Kiwifruit Vine Health, Make a report.
• Biosecurity New Zealand (MPI), Report a pest or disease, checked 8 November 2026.