Can we stop the &^%#@@## fruit flies?

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by Wombat, Mar 2, 2011.

  1. Wombat

    Wombat Junior Member

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    We have tried traps and they fill rapidly and get changed weekly. We've let the chooks free range over the veggie patch - and every single tomato and cucumber and zucchini is riddled with the pests.

    It's time to get physical- planning to make netting to wrap the plants in - anyone tried using weed mat on the ground - would it stop the lava/immature flies entering/leaving the soil? Anyone know how far sideways the blighters can travel underground?
     
  2. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

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    I haven't any experience with this but i saw a show on tv about some vietnamese dragonfruit farmers who used a chemical solution. The thing is they put it only on part of the crop and not the whole crop. They still lost some fruit to fruit fly but not nearly as much as they had used to. If you get really desperate, you might want to look it up. It seems to be important that all the farms in the area do the same thing if i recall correctly. I either saw it on sbs or abc. YOu could look it up.

    I think the idea was that it helped keep the insect population numbers down.
     
  3. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    use mossy netting over the fruiting plants, that spray the viet' farmers use is a newly developed and from what i gleaned when i saw the show is unlikley to ever be available to gardeners.

    all you can do is run male fruit fly wick traps this at least will tell you what sort of populations you might have, so far i have not had liquid trap that works against the female, she is the one who causes the damage.

    i would also suggest you collect damaged fruit before it fall, wrap it and freeze it then dispose in you garbage can on collection day. if you want to keep teh damged fruit on site for mulching then you need to hang the fruit on tied black plastic bags in the full sun to cook. me i prefer the earlier method no risk that way. the fruit goes to the dump double bagged.

    anothe thing that seems an issue in controlling the female, if she is born in another agrden right after emerging she will get a big feed of protein, once she has done this she is unlikley to look for more in the liquid trap bottle, and once fed she quickly mates, can do this away fom your garden then fly in and infest your fruit.

    wouldn't rely on chooks getting all the maggots in a piece of fruit the maggots have this ability to flick themselves from one place to another, they don't rely on crawling. i had the impression once when we had chooks that if i put damaged fruit into a container it would help the chooks find all the maggots, but once i saw they could all but jump tha idea went out the door.

    len
     
  4. permup

    permup Junior Member

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    Wombat, my commiserations to you. We have it in Sydney, but nowhere near to the extent that you do. I get it in tomato, strawberry quava, cherry and occasionally in banana where the skin has split, but that's about it. I can't imagine how soul destroying it must be to have it through cucumbers, zuchhinis etc. I manage by bagging all of my tomatoes with calicoe bags (you can get pre-made ones from Green Harvest), and I've resorted to mosquito netting my whole strawberry guava shrub. I've had to wrap it around the shrub, tying it around the base of the trunk to stop them coming up through the soil, then pegging it up all around to stop them getting in. It allows me to get in easily to harvest, but it deforms the shrub a bit as it tries to grow. Its hard work bagging fruit all the time, and would be even harder with cucumbers because they are so prolific.

    I seriously considered using Naturalure from Green Harvest. I even bought it at a considerable sum, but after reading the packet decided not to. It will kill other insects, and I just can't bring myself to mess up the biodiversity of my garden, because except for fruit fly and leaf miner - I don't have any pests or disease.

    Its a shame we can't just get over the idea of eating maggots isn't it?
     
  5. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    g'day paula,

    yeh haven't heard any glowing reports about naturelure where it works it does little and not only other insects but puts bees at risk also.

    len
     
  6. Tegs

    Tegs Junior Member

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    I read an article once that surprised me. All the fruit fly traps that I have ever seen have always been yellow, but according to this article the Mediterranean fruit fly is attracted to yellow but the QUEENSLAND FRUIT FLY IS ATTRACTED TO BLUE!?!?!?! I had never heard this before and it was quite surprising that everything sold as fruit fly traps/ lures are yellow.
    Has anyone had any experience using blue? Does it work more effectively than yellow?
     
  7. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    g'day tegs,

    as you can gather t/f/f has ben one of my issues like many other gardeners, so i have searched for that elusive cure. science will be no help they can't help us, to my knowledge this thing is another that slipped through our slack border controls.

    i once bought some yellow sticky boards made of cardboard not exactly cheap but when the wind blew they ripped when it rained they soaked off the ties. yes the yellow did catch some f/f and lots of other harmless bugs, i wrapped yellow and blue tape around trap bottles to no avail. maybe the colour idea is a theory like carbon climate change i dunno?

    you can make your own boards try to get some flat plastic material in the right colour yellow or the right colour blue,then smear vaseline over both sides that will work and being plastic won't suffer the fate of those cardboard models.

    oh with naturelure also they say not to get the spray on the fruit. also someone did say they got some results with naturelure by spraying it into yellow buckest nailed to the fence. natuelure very expensive.

    len
     
  8. SueUSA

    SueUSA Junior Member

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    I wonder if anyone has, or would be interested in trying a method that wouldn't kill them, but might REPEL them?

    I'm in the U.S., and don't have any knowledge or experience with your Aussie fruit flies. But...

    I was recently on a forum for those interested in the Black Soldier Fly (BSF), and re-reading the article I had happened upon that sparked my interest in them. I understand that the BSF is common in Oz.

    From the article by Dr. Paul Oliver at //www.esrla.com/pdf/biocycle.pdf

    "...soldier flies aggressively compete with filth-bearing flies and very effectively block their proliferation."

    "While actively feeding, the larvae secrete an info-chemical that permits them to communicate with other species of flies. This synomone allows them to tell other flies that it makes little sense to lay their eggs within an area full of actively feeding SF larvae. This interspecies communication is very effective. In the vicinity of the disposal unit, we note the near absence of houseflies and all other flies that are a pest to humans."

    People who have livestock and BSF have reported incredible drops in the number of other flies in the area.

    I wonder if it would work in repelling your fruit flies by having various bins of feeding BSF grubs in the shade under the fruit trees?

    It would certainly be a cheap, safe, and natural way to handle the problem. The BSF don't swarm, don't have mouths (they only live 5-8 days), don't carry disease, don't like to go into homes. They naturally lay their eggs near food waste and manure, the eggs hatch into grubs within 4-5 days, start feeding immediately and producing the info-chemical that repels other types of flies. All you have to do is feed them. In the tropics, they probably lay eggs all year long. For every 45 kg of manure or restaurant waste (any organic material, actually, but they don't like an excess of carbon materials like paper or straw, etc), they will reduce it to 2.2 kg of friable, compostable material. A good working colony of BSF grubs can digest over 15 kg of waste per square meter of feeding surface area per day.

    A feeding colony will attract more females to lay more eggs, and the mature grubs will climb a ramp of 40 degrees or less and self-harvest. They are high in calcium and protein, making an excellent chook food (up to 25% of their diet), and the younger grubs are a very good fish food.

    So... what if you could use organic waste to feed a free, naturally-occurring, non-pest insect to repel a voracious pest like your fruit fly, and harvest the grubs for chook* or fish food? Does this sound like a permaculture solution?

    *It is not a good idea to raise the grubs on manure of the same species of animal that you intend to feed them to.

    Sue
     
  9. Tegs

    Tegs Junior Member

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    Sue that is FANTASTIC! must give that a go!!!
     
  10. SueUSA

    SueUSA Junior Member

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    I nearly forgot... here is the Black Soldier Fly discussion board: https://thebiopod.com/forum/index.php

    Yes, it is sponsored by the people who make and sell the BioPod unit for BSF (I think it's too expensive), but that does not affect the information they provide. Please keep in mind that the planned use of BSF is relatively new, and not only are all the answers not in, neither are all the questions. If you start raising BSF and discover new info (or support new info), it would be wonderful if you could contribute.

    Many of the people who contribute to the forum raise their BSF in large plastic tubs or buckets with an improvised ramp for the natural crawl-off. TIP: make sure your grub 'hatcheries' are protected from chooks and other animals. Any creature that likes grubs and insects appears to LOVE soldier flies.

    Sue
     

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