Queensland Fruit Fly Blog #5

A reminder to put out your protein baits for Queensland Fruit Fly. These kill male and female flies. The Wild May lures are less critical now as they primarily tell you when QFF are around and plenty of people are catching them! It is a good idea to continue to use the Wild May lures to trap more of the males, however. The overwintering QFF are dead. Now we are wanting to catch the ones hatching from the soil. We have been lucky with the weather so far as we have had very few days where the temperature at sunset was above 16 degrees which is a requirement for QFF to mate. However, the second flush is upon us, the weather is warming and the fruit big enough to be stung so get those protein baits, one per tree, out as quickly as possible.

You can buy Cera traps or use home made recipes in PET (lemonade) bottles. 

Alternatively, use net produce bags to cover limbs of fruit, or fully net trees and vegetables. Spraying with Kaolin clay (marketed as Overhaul or Surround) is extremely effective in preventing fruit being stung (and additionally prevents gall wasp in citrus).

Read previous blogs on Queensland Fruit Fly.

Written by Robin Gale-Baker