East Michigan fruit update – July 19, 2019
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EmailTrap catch of spotted wing Drosophila and cherry fruit fly spiked in the last few days in east Michigan. Act now to control them.
Spotted wing Drosophila (SWD) trap catch numbers have taken a good spike in the last two days. Over the last five weeks we have been catching low numbers of SWD in our extensive network of traps across the region. These high SWD trap catch numbers in the last few days mean that growers of summer red and fall bearing raspberries, sweet and tart cherries and blueberries need to start controlling this pest immediately. I have been waiting to see this jump in trap catch numbers to advise fruit growers of the need to start control measures. That time is here now.
I am aware that a few strawberry growers are still harvesting late season strawberries, and have had several reports from growers finding SWD larva in berries. This is unusual, but we had a late start for strawberry harvest and therefore a late finish to the strawberry season. Growers finding larva need to either control this pest immediately or finish harvest operations.
The second pest that has seen a jump in trap catch is cherry fruit fly. This pest will attack sweet and tart cherries. Some sweet cherry growers are getting close to finishing harvest. If you have more than four days of cherries left to harvest, control measures need to be taken to control this pest.
Consult the 2019 Fruit Management Guide (MSU Extension publication E-154) for options to control both of these pests. Growers controlling SWD need to rotate their pesticide products to different families of insecticides to help prevent insect resistance.
