WED, APR 24 2024
2:12:49
- Author: Mark Bolda
Published on: October 8, 2019
So they don't infest neighboring areas with loads and loads of flies. Remember that time from egg to adult vinegar or spotted wing drosophila fly is something over two weeks when the conditions are right, so big piles of culls like these need to disappear fast.
Picture taken by UCD entomologist Frank Zalom on a recent trip down to our area to look at SWD in strawberry, which is becoming a bit of an issue as of late. You'll be hearing more about that later.
In the meantime, grab a shovel and bury these fruit!
Out of curiosity, I did check the label for Dibrom and it does indeed have applications around pig pens, barns, stables and the like, so I guess a use like you suggest could arguably be in compliance with the label (check with your Ag Commissioner to be sure though).
That said, I'm a little skeptical that an insecticide even as powerful as Dibrom would penetrate through the whole pile. Certainly, you will kill a heap of flies and see dead ones all over the place, but the point with something like this is not to win battles but win the war.
Burying these heaps deep will kill ALL of the flies, simply because they can't emerge. Make sure it's deep though, some work from Dr. Amy Dreves up in Oregon found flies emerging from fruit that was buried more than a foot down in the ground.