To start I am not an expert in fruit flies but I am an individual who suffered too much. I spent a lot of time studying the life cycle of OFM and came to the conclusion it can not be controlled by little fruit grower like myself. The little guys and gals fight against OFM reminds me with a regular army in guerrilla ware fare fights which no army ever won. The French and we the Americans lost in Vietnam, the Russians lost in Afghanistan and we lost in Iraq and now we are trying to find less humiliating way to leave Afghanistan. It is a simple problem the Americans, the Russians and the French all has almighty fire power but their enemy is not clearly defined and can not be found. The same analogy I have almighty fire power in terms of Spectracide, Sevin. Bonide and host of insecticides to kill OFM but I can not find them they are ghost enemy and the damage is severe. Off course the commercial growers who has thousands of acres of orchard has their sophisticated system and teams of experts. They even found ways to prevent the adult OFM from having sex to fertilize the eggs and other ways to render the male impotent.
From my study about the OFM the adults do not harm my trees but the one who does the little larva hatched from the eggs. In early spring where it is cool the eggs need 3 weeks to hatch and in hot summer the eggs need 3 to 5 days to hatch and there are 5 generations in one season.
Call me crazy but desperate how about if I prevent the eggs from hatching by spraying dormant oil spray like the one made by Bondie and called all season. In spring I can spray every two weeks and in hot summer I can spray every 3 days. I know too much oil on the tree is not good but especially if the tree suffers from droughts. It is not a big of a deal I water my 40 trees and depend only on rain very little.
Please tell me the pros and cons. If it works it will save me from depression.
Thanks for reading my silly rant.
Abe