hello..i moved into a my first house last spring and in the yard there was a sour cherry tree. it produced lots of fruit and the first batch was fine but the second time i picked the cherries i noticed worms (i have read that they are magots or from some fruit fly). i want to know what i need to do to prevent the worms this year (i also have a peach tree and don't want worms there either). can anyone recommend any treatment??? preferably one that doesn't require multiple chemical sprays b/c i have a new baby at home too.... any help is appreciated. thanks
cherry fruit fly has an emergent date a certain number of days; a very early variety may avoid it; with yellow sticky squares you could monitor emergence; better pick 'em early if that means you can have wormless cherries; sorry if unclear, I will elaborate in another post. Maybe you can plant some seedlings that may ripen earlier than the fly eggs.
Hi. Sorry my last post was in haste. What cultivar do you have? 'Montmorency' likely? The cherry fruit fly is maggot-like in appearance (head small). The plum curculio has a worm (larvae) that has a dark head, and control for this would be different. As I implied before, a very early tart cherry can ripen before the cherry fruit fly has a chance to lay its eggs; but, the curculio can infest fruit season-long, so control may be necessary (but not necessarily chemical). One strategy for the plum curculio (which possibly infests, and could also be applied to peach,) is to jar the trunk of the tree with a padded board while the adults are around -- the disturbance tends to make them just fall off (as a defense mechanism of the insect,) so you can have a tarp spread beneath, collecting and thereafter destroying them. Look into propagating some seeds of cherry. It can be a patience-requiring process, but if you happened to have an earlier-ripening variety, then control may be easier (also of birds). I am sure a University that is researching tart cherries discards dozens or hundreds of pits every year, which might be worth trying out -- a tart cherry does not take much room or attention to grow, once you get it (to germinate and) established. ---a
Okay, so I'm not sure I've fully answered this yet. First it would be useful to know if it's curculio or fruit fly. If it's curculio, then it could possibly get into your peach too. It is a difficult pest to control without using chemicals. Sometimes having a larvae inside will cause the fruit to drop prematurely. Here is a good page about them. Now if it is fruit fly, then it will not also go into your peach. If you put up a yellow sticky square in one of your cherry trees, then you could monitor when the adults are emerging -- once you see a few flies on the card, then figure 10 days before any eggs are laid; once eggs are laid, it takes about 5 days until hatching into larvae in the fruit. An important way to reduce the pest's presence is to harvest all the fruit. Wild cherry trees (pin cherry, etc.) also host this pest, so they can fly in and infest remaining fruit on trees, then pupate in your orchard soil. Here is a page about them. Here's a picture of cherry fruit fly adult.
Have a look at this website: www.kootenaycovers.com It's a very interesting new idea. It's basically a cover to protect your cherry tree. I have not used them but I bought 4 bags this year and am going to give it a try. I think it's a great idea. This lady is based out of B.C., Canada so you would have to get it shipped if you bought one.
