Trapping the Spotted Winged Drosophila

Trapping the Spotted Winged Drosophila. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Fruit flies are trouble for fruit. Growers in Oregon are being asked to help get an idea of how many and what can be done about it according to Amy Dreves, Crop and Soil Science Entomologist with Oregon State University. DREVES: In some cases there have been traps already placed. There's over 600 traps out in all the bearing stone crops. We do not have any action thresh holds and that means are we able to say that one fly equals this much loss or 10 flies equals this much loss – we can't say that. It's our first year of monitoring and we're doing the best we can. Dreves says they are looking for individuals who are trapping or planning to trap for Spotted Wing Drosophila in their vineyards this season. DREVES: We're testing a lot to our traps to see how attractive they really are in comparison to fruit and we will be looking at crop loss so it's going to be interesting to see what actually comes to the grapes. They are looking to compile as much data as possible before they can put together an action plan. DREVES: I think we'll have a good base this first year but really it's a 5-year project and this year we'll be able to say we had some cases where we had some loss and we didn't have any flies go to it but we might be able to associate that there was a source close by so it will be a couple of years before we really get a grip on what some of those thresh holds really mean. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.