Resources
Fruit Fly Status Week 45 13
These figures represent regions managed by FFA. Check your farm's traps weekly – post harvest monitoring and control of FF is critical to manage FF populations. Bait weekly – increase to twice a week if you start catching fruit flies…
Fruit Fly Status Week 40 5
These figures represent regions managed by FFA. Check your farm's traps weekly – post harvest monitoring and control of FF is critical to manage FF populations. Bait weekly – increase to twice a week if you start catching fruit flies…
Pest Fact Sheet – FCM
False codling moth (FCM) is a native pest to South Africa. It is a polyphagous pest of many important South African export crops. The most important cultivated hosts of FCM are citrus, stone fruit, avocadoes, pomegranates, persimmons, macadamias and hot…
Pest Fact Sheet – Medfly
The Mediterranean fruit fly is one of the most destructive fruit pests in the world. It is native to sub-Saharan Africa and has established in most regions of the world, but those regions that do not yet have it, East…
Fruit-fly management in Europe
Climate change is driving biological invasions in temperate European zones. What is being done to protect agriculture? By Engela Duvenage. Warmer weather is increasingly allowing tropical pests and other species to persist throughout winter, and become problems, according to applied…
Systems approach proves its worth
Dr Aruna Manrakhan of Citrus Research International reviews its use in South African citrus and deciduous fruit. By Engela Duvenage. “Prior to 1980, fruit industries relied on single-point disinfestation treatments to mitigate insect pest risks,” said Manrakhan. “The ban or…
Brown marmorated stink bug
What do growers, chocolate lovers, car manufacturers, and homeowners have in common? Hostility to brown marmorated stink bugs. By Anna Mouton. The brown marmorated stink bug — Halyomorpha halys — is a pentatomid bug. Familiar pentatomids include antestia — Antestiopsis thunbergii — and green…
Light brown apple moth
Larvae of the light brown apple moth eat pretty much anything — this is never a good sign in a pest. By Anna Mouton. The light brown apple moth — Epiphyas postvittana — is a leaf-roller moth in the well-known Tortricidae family.…
Managing market access
Ensuring that South African growers can send their fruit to international markets is a full-time job. By Anna Mouton. Lindi Benić is the joint market-access manager for Hortgro and SATI — the South African Table Grape Industry. Market access involves…
Spotted-wing drosophila
Most drosophila fruit flies hang around overripe or rotting fruit. But the spotted-wing drosophila prefers to raise its offspring on fresh fruit. By Anna Mouton. Almost everyone is familiar with fruit flies in the genus Drosophila — they are those annoying little…
Peach fruit fly
Whereas spotted-wing drosophila is the black sheep of an otherwise blameless family, the peach fruit fly is one of the Mafiosi of the insect world. By Anna Mouton. The peach fruit fly — Bactrocera zonata — shares a genus with the notorious…
Fruit-fly expert calls for new policies
Detection data should inform regulation. By Engela Duvenage. An ominous anniversary of sorts was celebrated on 5 June 2019 when Prof. James Carey from the Department of Entomology and Nematology at the University of California, Davis gave an overview of…
Crop protection in the Orchard of the Future
A changing strategy for a changing world. By Marinda Louw Coetzee. Crop protection is changing due to increasingly stringent market requirements for ethical fruit production, as well as due to changes in orchard structure and ecology. The Orchard of the…
Raising the bar
What comes next for the Orchard of the Future? By Glenneis Kriel and Wiehann Steyn. The Orchard of the Future programme was considered revolutionary when it was launched in 2010, but innovations associated with the participating orchards have since become…
Five factors affecting fruit set
Expert advice on getting the best out of your Japanese plums. By Anna Mouton. The past season was remarkable for the disastrous set in certain Japanese plum cultivars in some areas, most notably the Breede River Valley and Klein Karoo.…
Future-proofing pest management
Research in biological control is shaping the next agricultural revolution. By Anna Mouton. The so-called green revolution of the sixties gave the world mind-boggling advances in agriculture. Crop production boomed thanks to the development of new varieties and cultivation methods…
A tale of two flies
How Oriental fruit flies differ from Mediterranean fruit flies. By Grethe Bestbier. The Mediterranean fruit fly has long been established across South Africa and now a new kid on the block has appeared: the Oriental fruit fly. While both Mediterranean…
Going the distance
Factors influencing dispersal in Oriental fruit flies. By Grethe Bestbier. “At the moment the Western Cape is an Oriental fruit fly free area, and we want to maintain it like that,” says Prof. Chris Weldon from the Department of Zoology…
A citrus perspective on Oriental fruit fly
What can the Western Cape learn? By Grethe Bestbier. Up to now the Western Cape has dodged the Oriental fruit fly bullet, but other parts of South Africa have not been so fortunate. According to Dr Aruna Manrakhan, research entomologist…
False codling moth
What growers need to know about control. By Anna Mouton. False codling moth is — you guessed it — a moth and it belongs to the family Tortricidae. Its relatives include other important agricultural pests such as codling moth, Oriental…
Looking to the future
Developing a South African phenophase-temperature database. By Anna Mouton. A need to better understand seasonal temperatures and bud break in pome and stone fruit has inspired a new project that aims to establish a phenophase-temperature database. The project is jointly…
Getting more out of monitoring
Is there a missed opportunity? Hugh Campbell, general manager of Hortgro Science, asks whether monitoring represents missed opportunities. In an interview with Fresh Quarterly, he shared his thoughts on the potential of a standardised monitoring system where data is captured…
MACHINE LEARNING USED TO STUDY FRUIT FLY
By Jorisna Bonthuys In the Western Cape, Ceratitis capitata, commonly known as the Mediterranean fruit fly or Medfly, is one of the most economically harmful pests in orchards, causing fruit damage and posing a phytosanitary risk.
Fruit flies
Keeping your orchard pest-free. By Dane McDonald. It is the trouble every fruit grower is trying to avoid— finding a fruit-fly larva— just one hit can ruin the day, if not the entire season. “Nobody wants a maggot in their…
Biological control of fruit flies
Researchers turn to nature for help. By Engela Duvenage. Does nature provide its own little helpers to support the South African agricultural sector in controlling its fruit fly problem? Indeed, said Dr Pia Addison, upon reflecting on four years of…
War on pests: the mass production of a biological wonder weapon
As the noose tightens around maximum residue limits, a local biocontrol method seems the perfect solution. But the road to commercialising entomopathogenic nematodes for biocontrol has been littered with speed bumps. By Esté Beerwinkel. Surrounded by binders on her desk,…
Yin and yang
Understanding the cold sterilisation of dual-temperature plums. By Esté Beerwinkel. Yin and yang describe how seemingly opposite forces may actually be complementary. Dual-temperature plums need both moderate and cold temperatures to be successful on the international markets. In this Q&A,…
Soil’s Trojan horse
Is an affordable and effective biocontrol method at hand for the deciduous-fruit industry? After more than a decade of researching entomopathogenic nematodes, two Stellenbosch University researchers seem to think so. By Esté Beerwinkel. It’s dark. A population of false codling…
ORIENTAL FRUIT FLY INTERCEPTION IN GRABOUW AREA
Hortgro reacts to Oriental Fruit Fly interception in Grabouw area Over the past decade Hortgro has been pro-actively preparing for the possibility of the occurrence of Bactrocera dorsalis or Oriental Fruit Fly (OFF) in the Western Cape. Hortgro Science’s Crop Protection Programme…
HOW CAN TOWN RESIDENTS ASSIST AGRICULTURE WITH FRUIT FLY?
One of the greatest sources of high fruit fly populations is from year-round infestation in town gardens which serve as a source of infestation of adjacent farms. All fruit trees as well as other trees/shrubs which bear fleshy berries/fruitlets can…
FRESH NOTES 168
These figures represent regions managed by FFA. Check your farm's traps weekly as counts are increasing. Hot weather ahead will accelerate fruit fly development. Bait weekly – increase to twice a week if you start catching fruit flies in your…
Fresh Notes 141
Andrew Jessup, an Australian research horticultural entomologist, recently visited Hortgro Science to share his insights on dealing with fruit fly invasion. Jessup spoke to researchers and other industry stakeholders about the importance of monitoring for Bactrocera dorsalis, and why "prevention…
MONITORING BACTROCERA DORSALIS
Status of Bactrocera dorsalis: Bactrocera dorsalis (Oriental Fruit Fly) is a quarantine pest of Asian origin capable of infesting various commercial fruit crops (400 recorded hosts). It was previously described as the Invader fruit fly (Bactrocera invadens). It is now found in 65 countries…
Fresh Notes 137
Bactrocera dorsalis (Oriental Fruit Fly) is a quarantine pest of Asian origin capable of infesting various commercial fruit crops (400 recorded hosts). It was previously described as the Invader fruit fly (Bactrocera invadens).
Fresh-Notes-133
Bactrocera dorsalis (the Oriental Fruit Fly) is a quarantine pest of Asian origin capable of infesting various commercial fruit crops. This pest serves as a major phytosanitary problem for fruit marketing in areas where it is present in South Africa.