Jim Dill: Hi, I'm Jim Dill. I'm the Pest Management Specialist with the University of Maine Cooperative

Extension. We've been trapping for spotted wing drosophila, and the first thing we want

to start talk to you about today is the trap. What to do and then what to look for in the

fruit.

First, let's look at a trap. Let's take the top off this trap. This has been out here

for about a week. As you take the top off the trap with the bait, you can zero in here,

and there are many, probably right now I can see about 25, small flies floating on the

top of this trap. You can look down and you can see the spots on the wing of the male.

Again, that's the male spotted wing drosophila. The females have a tendency to either float

or, when they sink, their ovipositor, which is what they use to lay eggs with, actually

becomes overted and you can see that, so it's easy to tell the males and the females in

here. The females do not have the spot on the wing.

You've got your traps out, and you've started finding spotted wing drosophila in your traps.

The concern now becomes, what's happening to the fruit? We have been finding, here in

Maine this year, which is 2012, we found maggots or flies, so far, in raspberries, blackberries,

blueberries, elderberry, grapes, chokecherry, and peaches. Traditionally, the fruit flies

that we have, would come to the overripe fruit. Their ovipositor, which is what they lay their

eggs with, it's not serrated. It doesn't have that little saw-like on it, so it has to be

very, very soft fruit for them to lay an egg in.

But this one, now, with this serrated ovipositor, can actually lay the eggs in fruit like this,

or even like this. Once you get fruit like this attacked, it doesn't take long before

it starts to shrivel up. Let's see what's happening here with the fruit. We'll pull

some off, take a look at it. This is what's happening. You see, when you pull that fruit

off too, it almost looks bubbly in there, almost like there was a detergent in there.

That's because the fruit has started to be eaten by the maggots. Once it's being eaten

by the maggots, it gets real juicy.

In this particular berry, just looking here, as I move this apart with the pen I can probably

see at least a half a dozen or a dozen maggots, right in this area. Part of the problem is,

with this pest, when you go out and you pick your fruit, it looks great on the vine or

on the bush. Within a matter of maybe 24 hours with raspberries, or two or three days with

blueberries, they just start to turn to liquid.

You can actually see some maggots crawling on the fruit, but even worse, you can see

in this box where it's actually started to liquefy. The box has soaked it all up, but

on the outside of the box you've got all these maggots crawling around. These are about a

week old, on the blueberries. Now, the raspberries, these were nice, fine-looking raspberries

yesterday. If you look down onto the berries, the berries are just starting to turn to mush

and, again, you've got maggots crawling, coming from the berries. Some of these berries have

just completely, as I say, turned to mush.

The problem comes within a minimum, this time of year, in the summer, a minimum of 14 days

and maybe even as quick as 10 days, the fly can go from egg to adult. It's a real fast

critter, so that's going to give us real problems with trying to manage this particular pest.

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Whether it be a backyard situation or a commercial situation.

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