This Thursday, March 10, from 11:30 – 12:30pm EST, Dr. Juliet Carroll will present on her research about encouraging hummingbirds in blueberry patches to reduce Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) damage. This is one of the seminar series organized by New York State Integrative Pest Management (NYS IPM) program.
Juliet Carroll is the Fruit IPM Coordinator for the NYS IPM Program. She works to promote the adoption of IPM practices by fruit growers to manage arthropod, plant disease, weed, and vertebrate pests. She holds a PhD from Cornell University in plant pathology and plant molecular biology, a MS from the University of Massachusetts in plant pathology and a BS from the University of Maine in botany. Her IPM research currently focuses on surveying orchards for invasive insects and alternative strategies for managing the destructive invasive insect spotted-wing drosophila.
More information about Dr. Carroll’s research:
Hummingbirds require arthropods in their diet and may consume 2000 small insects, including Drosophilids, per day when fledging young. In New York State, we investigated the use of feeders to attract Ruby-throated Hummingbirds into raspberry fields to encourage predation of spotted-wing Drosophila (SWD) with the goal of reducing fly populations and fruit infestation. Baited traps were used to assess fly populations and salt flotation was used to assess fruit infestation. Over four years (2015-2018), 81% of 266 hourly observations of hummingbird behavior found the birds were occupying the raspberry planting when utilizing the feeders, supporting opportunities for predation on SWD flies. In some of the weeks when high numbers of hummingbirds were observed in the unsprayed research plots (2016-2018), the number of SWD caught in traps and found in fruit were reduced (p ≤ 0.05) in the area of the field with 62 feeders/hectare, compared to the area without feeders. In two commercial raspberry fields (2020), in the one with 151 feeders/hectare significant reductions (p ≤ 0.05) in trap catch was found in most weeks during the fruiting season compared to the field without feeders. No Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were observed in the commercial field without feeders. Hummingbirds may protect fruit against SWD when encouraged with feeders to visit and occupy raspberry plantings. Encouraging hummingbirds in raspberry fields with feeders or with nectar-producing plants has the potential for contributing to an SWD IPM program and reducing the reliance on chemical management.
New York State Integrative Pest Management (NYS IPM) program website