National Sterile Insect Technique Day, Tuesday 2 December 2025 at the CTIFL centre in Balandran.

Sterile Insect Technique  has proven effective against Drosophila suzukii in greenhouse crops. To deploy this technique on a large scale, some technical and logistical obstacles need to be addressed. This includes mainly the lack of automation in the mass production of sterile males and in addition to their low competitiveness compared to wild males in the field. The Incompatible Insect Technique (IIT) is an alternative strategy in which males are sterilized by the endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia. Although naturally present in D. suzukii, Wolbachia's potential for developing IIT is still unexploited. The objective of the OPTIMISTII project (2025-2029) is to develop an integrated TIS-TII strategy to effectively control D. suzukii in cherry crop through the release of males sterilized by the synergistic effect of X-rays (SIT) and Wolbachia (TII).