|
| This is the third year in a row that I've had a complete crop devastation from Drosophila suzukii. The infestation is so bad that my apple crop is 80% destroyed.
Thanks to this pest, I will say my good byes to the majority of the soft fruit crops I have grown so far. I will be removing every last blackberry and raspberry vine off my property, remove most sour and wild cherries. I will be tearing out the majority of my plums, pluots and peaches, leaving just the bare minimum my family can consume. I kid you not, the infestation was so bad, it's not even worth having any of these fruits around, they just rot on the branches and vines. Without the soft fruit, the pressure on apples and pears isn't that great. But with a ton of soft fruit around the last few seasons, the population simply exploded this year. Thanks to this fruit fly, my fruit hobby will focus from now on more on non-soft fruits. This fly has single handedly destroyed my dream of an orchard where you can just walk in and always find something ripe to eat. I have to focus now on harvest schedules and making sure crops get removed from the trees as soon as they begin to ripen. I've discovered the number one vector for the fly is the raspberry, followed by blackberries and then capulin cherries. There is no point on trying to grow any of these fruits unless I am willing to create a permanent enclosure with mosquito netting. I guess I'll just be buying my berries at Trader Joes. And if anyone would ask, I would never, ever recommend any home gardener to even bother with blackberries and raspberries, it's not worth the trouble. Drosophila suzukii has rendered it nearly impossible to grow these, even strong pesticides don't really work. |
Follow-Up Postings:
|
| How will you control it on the leftover peaches and plums? |
|
- Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on Tue, Oct 9, 12 at 7:03
| Axel, I am so sorry. Seems like fruit is becoming as hard to grow on the west coast as in the east. Maybe some non-synthetic methods will be developed to handle this pest- I assume they searching for affective predators. |
|
- Posted by scottfsmith 6B-7A-MD (My Page) on Tue, Oct 9, 12 at 8:54
| Argh, I'm sorry to hear that Axel. That guy makes the BMSB sound downright friendly. I have found a similar problem with the BMSB in my orchard, there is a season-long smorgasbord laid out for it - berries to stone fruits to pears and apples. Same goes for the wasps, I have built up a large population of these huge nasty wasps based on their surfing my different crop waves over the season. Similarly for birds as well. Its a dark side of growing lots of different fruits in a small area. Scott |
|
- Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on Tue, Oct 9, 12 at 9:13
| Scott, wasps were a huge issue at all orchards I managed this year regardless of range of fruit. |
|
| Axel: Wow, that does sound awful. Makes one wonder how the commercial growers are going to manage, especially berry growers in places like OR. They must be spraying every week. You'd have to keep them from building up. This is the pest I'd least want to see in my greenhouse. But I didn't even see any of the normal fruit flies this year. Don't need any stink bugs or wasps either. I don't know how you guys out east manage all the pests. It doesn't sound like fun to me. |
|
| As 'Newbie' it is 'challenging' at best ( in the northeast). If I didn't spray or net I wouldn't have fruit at all. I would love a greenhouse! |
|
| This past year I watched the cycle more closely. I had made a commitment to get on the problem early and keep population under control. With the cherries it worked. I netted the cherries, and what didn't get netted got eaten by the birds, so there was little chance of the population to take off on my cherries. Since they are the first soft fruit to ripen in my orchard, populations are still low to begin with. But as soon as the raspberries started to ripen, the population took off. I did not put netting over my raspberries, it's too hard to seal, I'd have to bury the netting, because the flies enter from below. Then they infested the blackberries with a vengeance, there I did have netting but not sealed from below. The apricots came in next but were left mostly alone. Only the fruit left to over-ripen on the tree got infected. I have a large collection of plums, peaches, nectarines, and pluots. The pluots got completely infested, at which point the population was so large there wasn't much I could do without a ton of work. There was literally a cloud of bugs over the trees, with wasps kicking in to finish off anything rotting on the tree. Apples and pears were left alone until all stone fruits and soft fruit disappeared, then apples and pears got them. The maggots don't survive in the apples and pears, they just damage them. Based on what I observed, I have to either hermetically seal-net the berries or get rid of them. If I seal them I don't know if they will get pollinated. I haven't decided yet, but most likely will just remove the berries, they are easier to buy and taste just as good from the store. But no matter what, I have to cull my stone fruit collection. I will probably dwindle my collection down to a very small list that I can easily manage. I am definitely chain-sawing my pluots, they are worthless in my climate, and the peach collection will be reduced down to four small trees of "snow beauty", "frost", saturn, and one more. Plums will get dwindled down to one Japanese multi-graft tree and one European multi-graft tree. My apricots produce so little I will just leave them as is. Scott is right, growing a lot of fruit in a small area is bad news. I will be making more of an effort to "quarantine" all the stone fruits into one area of the garden. I may just put them all in a single row and put up a permanent frame that gets netting every year. The bad news is that this means starting over and re-engineering my entire orchard. |
|
| "How will you control it on the leftover peaches and plums" You need to hit the trees hard with malathion. |
|
| I'm a little north of you (Silicon Valley) and I'm worried about this pest. So far they haven't found us but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Our most susceptible fruit is probably our mulberry. No cherries, raspberries, or blackberries here, but we do have an awful lot of other fruit growing. I worry about the grapes and blueberries, too, but the apples are my favorites. Rosefolly |
|
| UC Davis Pestnotes recommends Spinosad as a least-toxic spray, but says that timing is critical. Rosefolly |
|
| Lots of info at Oregon State University http://horticulture.oregonstate.edu/group/spotted-wing-drosophila |
Here is a link that might be useful: re SWD
|
| I'm wondering if bagging apples might be a useful strategy for those with only a few trees. |
|
| I am pretty sure that removal of the blackberries and raspberries will make a big difference. The raspberries are by far the absolute worst vector. I will continue to use GF-120 to keep the population from taking off, as long as I have little rotting fruit and no more raspberries and blackberries, it should be fine. |
|
- Posted by milehighgirl CO USDA 5B/Sunset 2B (My Page) on Thu, Oct 11, 12 at 23:21
| Axel, "This fly has single handedly destroyed my dream of an orchard where you can just walk in and always find something ripe to eat." I have the same dream and I can only imagine your heartbreak. I am terribly sorry. |
|
| The first reports from the University of RI(hort dept.) to all of us fruit growers this early spring, was about setting out traps to count SWD. The count became large very quickly, and really picked up in June/July. They never got to me in Newport, RI, but the rest of the state suffered. The strawberry crops were badly hurt as were blueberries. It is a nasty thing. So sorry, Axel. Mrs. G |
|
- Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on Fri, Oct 12, 12 at 10:30
| The recent increase in pest pressure is truly alarming. I wonder how organic fruit production strategies will be able to keep up. I would have lost my peach crop to stinkbugs this season without the use of pyrethroids. Seems like SB's and DS are going to be either impossible or very difficult to deal with organically. Hard enough with all the benefits of modern chemistry. When consumer goods were mostly manufactured in this country the introduction of new pests was probably much slower as a result. |
|
| Looks like the Monterey Bay area was ground zero for drosophila suzukii in 2008. That seems to be about the time when I first discovered damage from the fly in my own orchard. I remember the capulin cherries were full of holes, I thought at the time that it was bird damage, but the holes were too small for birds. For those curious, this is the first entomologist blog post for this pest ever posted in 2008: Looking at this post, it becomes clear that raspberries are a primary vector and this explains the proliferation of this pest in my orchard. In fact, the advice from this initial post is as follows: "It is advisable not to leave strawberries and caneberries to continue to fruit without harvest over the winter, as it is suspected that the D. suzukii will continue to breed and multiply in these areas. " Of course, in my orchard, we can't eat all the raspberries and blackberries, a number of them end up rotting on the canes, hence why I want to remove them. DROSOPHILA SUZUKII: GROUND ZERO An unusual outbreak of a Drosophila that was infesting marketable fruit was noticed in the Monterey Bay Area of California during Fall 2008 and resulted in phenomenal rates of fruit infestation in both strawberries and caneberries, well over 50% in some cases. This insect was later identified as the spotted wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii. The fly has now been reported from virtually all coastal California counties and a number of central valley counties as well. Descriptions of damage to caneberries and strawberries, and results of monitoring and control studies in the Monterey Bay area that have been ongoing since Fall 2008 are presented. |
|
| Apparently this pest is now in the entire US, I even found berry orchards in North Carolina that have complete crop losses this year and last year: Once again this year we are dealing with the same pest which destroyed most of our fall crop last year, the Spotted Wing Drosophila. The fruit flies have again created a major loss of our raspberry crop and we have been unable to offer U-Pick this fall 2012. The more I read about this, the more it might be worthwhile to put in some extra effort to keep the berries as prices are going to go through the roof. I was thinking of setting up a scaffolding around my berries to keep the fly out. it would have to be hermetically sealed, but it would be worth it if it gets too expensive to buy raspberries. |
|
- Posted by windfall_rob vt4 (My Page) on Fri, Oct 12, 12 at 14:24
| Axel, sorry to hear how hard your struggle and loss is. SWD showed up in southern VT in a minor way at the end of last summer. This summer it was present throughout the state by the end of summer. Again mostly in a minor way although I understand there were some heavy losses at some locations. At this point everyone is holding their breath waiting to see what the over wintering ability is. A slow wave of bugs moving north late in the season could be dealt with. But a local population building from spring...well that would be a much greater challenge. |
|
| Last year was the demise of our super-raspberry patch. We still haven't recovered. I hear you can manage them with a vinegar trap, where they are atracted to the smell and get stuck. Good luck. |
|
| Hey this scares me a little too. But I think the real problem comes in when they are left to breed to high numbers on rotting fruit. Berries are bad in that regard since there is always going to be unpicked and rotting fruit. If one harvests all the fruit on time and leaves nothing to rot, then I suspect the situation will be managable. Scaring everyone needlessly isn't productive. |
|
- Posted by franktank232 z5 WI (My Page) on Sat, Oct 13, 12 at 16:13
| More production will have to move under plastic/glass... |
|
- Posted by larry_gene USDA8b-OregonPDX (My Page) on Sat, Oct 13, 12 at 23:23
| SWD flies initially attack ripening fruit, unlike most other fruit flies. I keep all over-ripe fruit and rotting fruit cleaned out of the small patch, hard to say if this reduces the fly population as ripening fruit outnumbers rotting fruit in my patch by hundreds to one. I trapped well over 1,000 flies in both 2011 and 2012 using 4 small apple cider vinegar traps. I have no idea if this reduced the number of fruit attacks or simply attracted more flies to the berry patch. When the infested berries are refrigerated or frozen, many of the larva emerge and can be picked out or brushed off the berries. Filtered berry juice will also be larva-free. Salt water will also cause emergence, not sure if the salt water could then be completely rinsed off the berries. In my case the flies do not deform the berries or turn them to mush like other attacked fruits. This whole fly thing is distasteful, but I have been able to use the bulk of my berries. |
|
| Fruitnut, you're absolutely right. My patch is almost impenetrable and think wider rows less vigorous infestations will result cause I can see the berries I may have originally missed. This year our chickens and turkeys were directed into the patch after picking. |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Fruit & Orchards Forum
Instructions
- You must be a registered member and logged in to post messages on our forums.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review the contents and make changes.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- It is illegal to post copyrighted material without the owner's consent.
- HTML codes are allowed in the message field only.
- No advertising is allowed in any of the forums.
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.