Today Ventura County Cooperative Extension Staff Research Associate Maren Mochizuki shares with us local SWD research results for the month of July.
Many seasonal changes occurred at our trapping locations last month. We opted not to continue trapping at the strawberry/blueberry location because the strawberries were removed and we had never trapped any SWD at this location. We hope to resume monitoring once the newly-planted strawberries and blueberries fruit at the same time.
Blueberry plants at the other two locations were pruned, removing foliage and fruit. Traps were moved in mid-July to a group of plantings scheduled to be pruned last, located farther east and downwind from the original trapping location. We had been capturing about the same number of males and females at the original location during the first two weeks of July but after the move found only females in traps at the new location and fewer individuals overall (Fig. 1).
At the mixed garden location, we trapped an average of 7 individuals per week, mostly females, among stone fruits and blackberries (Fig. 1). We also found females among strawberries located to the east and downwind but not consistently each week and so far have not trapped any SWD among newly-planted blackberries located to the west and upwind from the stone fruit trees.
Fig. 1. Total number of spotted wing drosophila trapped at two Ventura Co. locations during July 2010. One location was blueberry adjacent to blueberry and the other was a mixed garden with stone fruit, blackberries, and strawberries.
Bucket-style trap used in low-growing fruit such as strawberries.
For more information about this pest, please read previous posts or visit UC ANR’s intergrated pest management website.