08/08/06 Apple Maggot Found

Apple Maggot Found. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Finding a single male apple maggot doesn't sound like much but to Tom Wilson, coordinator of the Franklin County Horticultural, Pest and Disease Control Board it's a major event. WILSON: So you think finding one bug might not be exciting but it's exciting because of the fact that there could be more and what you are trying to do is determine if there is a breeding population. So you take much of the fruit off of that tree and you incubate it for 6 weeks to see what hatches, to see if you have a viable population and then you take when they had their normal trapping going on, maybe 60-70 traps in the area. Now were up to 200 because where we found one last year is considered like ground zero. Last year a single female maggot was found in the same area. Wilson says that the damage done by apple maggot can be devastating. WILSON: The big idea of course is keeping these things out of orchards because orchards can't sell their fruit. They got to go through a certification program. You might be aware of quarantines in places like Spokane, Bellingham and so on, they have to go through a lot of hoops to be able to sell their fruit because the apple maggot just gets underneath the skin and goes around like a gopher or a mole in your yard and turns the whole thing into mush and of course Canada & Mexico; nobody else wants those so that would severely impact an export market. Franklin Country and the Washington State Department of Agriculture are currently checking other traps and collecting fruit in the area for further signs of pests. Tomorrow Wilson discusses what happens when a maggot is found in an area. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.