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plumhillfarm

Cherry Maggots: What to do?

plumhillfarm
10 years ago

Hello, this year we had significant cherry maggot issues for the first time. This is surprising since we had not a decent cherry crop for the last 3 years. The only thing I can think of is we had a huge crop of early cherries which all split, the later varieties (Hudson and late sours) have significant maggot issues. I am wondering if the rotting early sweets brought them in?.

How do you control cherry maggots?

THanks, Eric

Comments (9)

  • drew51 SE MI Z5b/6a
    10 years ago

    It depends what they are from. Many pests can do this. I use MSU services when i have a problem. They have pest management services, ask an expert, and many online articles.
    http://www.cherries.msu.edu/

  • Scott F Smith
    10 years ago

    I think the four most common maggots in cherries are the cherry fruit fly, the curculio, the oriental fruit moth, and the spotted wing drosophila (fruit fly). Treatment for each is different, so step one is dig out some worms and make an identification. My problem this spring I believe was cherry curculio, its a relative of the plum curculio. I sprayed Surround and I had about 10% infection, but without the Surround it surely would have been a lot worse.

    Scott

  • Scott F Smith
    10 years ago

    There are also several kinds of curculio that can infest cherries, I was just giving the categories above. Recently I thought I only had the plum curculio but PersianMD pointed out that it could be the cherry curculio and that matches some of the adults I found. There is not a lot of difference between CFF and BCFF or between the different curculios.

    Scott

  • spartan-apple
    10 years ago

    I have 4 cherry trees. Once I found a maggot in one while pitting. That was enough for me.

    Now I always make my last spraying for curculio/fruit fly
    with Imidan at the first sign of pink on the fruit. Then I net
    my cherries. Imidan has a 15 day PHI on stone fruits so that is my last spraying. With the neeting on, I could not spray again anyway.

    This works for me! I have not found a maggot since.

  • drew51 SE MI Z5b/6a
    10 years ago

    Yeah that is good stuff, anybody know where to get 1 pound bags? I love killing bugs! I never purchased any as I could not find any smaller than 5 pounds.

  • franktank232
    10 years ago

    Here is a question then..

    What if i eat the larvae? Surely i won't turn into a curculio? I've been eating Evans sour cherries, and every now and again i'll find a larvae (have no idea which one)... i'm pretty sure its safe because over the years, i'm sure i've ate a few. I also eat a lot of bugs while biking. Protein..high quality bug protein...can't be cheap :)

  • drew51 SE MI Z5b/6a
    10 years ago

    Yeah it is probably good for you. We might even want to grow cherries for the larvae harvest!

  • lkz5ia
    10 years ago

    Problem is the little decay that sets in, otherwise, I wouldn't care about the worms. Some fruits like mulberries seem covered with very tiny bugs moving around the fruit, but no effect to the quality of fruit, so is pretty easy to gobble them up if don't stare too long.

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