Tracking the Fruit Fly Part 3

Tracking the Fruit Fly Part 3

Tracking the Fruit Fly Part 3. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. We have been taking a look at an effort by Oregon State University to accrue information while tracking the progress of the Spotted Winged Drosophila fruit fly. It causes an extreme amount of damage for many fruits across the entire northwest and according to Amy Dreves an entomologist with Oregon State University not only are they looking at what fruit flies may be trapped they are looking at the fruit itself. DREVES: We also are taking fruit samples every week and not only just ripe samples but we're taking green samples. What stage of the fruit is most susceptible? Dreves says they are currently looking for more volunteers to put out traps for the fruit flies and are hoping that will lead to more answers to some puzzling questions. DREVES: It's really just beginning. My numbers jumped two-fold and now we're getting more males in some cases than females and it used to be the reverse. One of the problem areas includes the backyard gardener who doesn't mind their crop like a farmer or orchardist would. DREVES: The backyard they don't do any spraying, it's a little wilder out there and we're finding SWD in some of those cases so they are definitely a group we are targeting because they would definitely be a source as you would guess for other folks too so we're trying to document what is happening not only backyard, commercial and organic, see if there's any differences there. You can find more information on trapping the spotted winged drosophila fruit fly on their website. Hort.oregonstate.edu. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
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