Latest information from the NYS IPM Program
Distinguishing female SWD from other fruit flies caught in traps can prove challenging. Look alike reports to help with identification have come in from Faruque Zaman, Long Island Horticultural Research & Extension Center, Riverhead, NY and Anna Wallingford, NY State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, NY. Faruque's pictures are below. Anna's videos are at Finger Lakes SWD Monitoring, where she posts on Monday afternoons.
A quick note to let everyone know that no SWD has been caught this week (June 14-20) in traps reporting to the SWD monitoring network in NY.
There is still time to prepare and plan for the actions that will be needed to protect your crops; use this time wisely. Review management tactics, calibrate sprayers, get a cooler for marketing harvested berries, install an accurate thermometer to track daily max/min temperatures, review your insecticide inventory, develop an insecticide rotation program, keep row middles mowed, control weeds, prune to open the plant canopy and reduce shady areas in the planting. Hummingbird feeders anyone?
SWD traps are being set out across NY in berry plantings by Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) personnel for the 2014 monitoring season. Trap catch results from the following counties will be reporting to the NY distribution map: Albany, Cayuga, Chautauqua, Chemung, Clinton, Columbia, Dutchess, Erie, Herkimer, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Onondaga, Ontario, Orange, Orleans, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schuyler, Seneca, St. Lawrence, Steuben, Suffolk, Tompkins, Ulster, Washington, Wayne, Wyoming, and Yates.
Statewide monitoring wouldn't be possible without the cooperation of all involved: Ginny Carlberg and Betsy Burgeson, Chautauqua County CCE; Jabe Warren, Chemung County CCE; Amy Ivy and Lindsey Pashow, Clinton County CCE; Sharon Bachman, Erie County CCE; Bernie Armata, Herkimer County CCE; Dave Thorp, Livingston County CCE; Paul Hetzler, St. Lawrence County CCE; Stephanie Mehlenbacher, Steuben County CCE; Faruque Zaman, Suffolk County CCE; Emily Cook, Ulster County CCE; Don Gasiewicz, Wyoming County CCE; Laura McDermott, Cara Fraver, Jim O'Connell, and Dan Donohue, Eastern NY Horticulture Program; Deborah Breth and Liz Tee, Lake Ontario Fruit Program; Peter Jentsch and Tim Lampasona, Entomology, Hudson Valley Lab; Greg Loeb and his lab group, Entomology, NYS Ag Experiment Station; and Juliet Carroll, NYS IPM Program, CCE.
Many of us participated in a SWD Workshop, held in May 2014, to hone our skills at identifying these tiny, destructive fruit flies. On hand to teach us the finer points of identifying female and male SWD and many other fruit fly look-alikes were Greg Loeb, Professor of Entomology, and members of his lab, Steve Hesler, Anna Wallingford, and Johanna Elsensohn, and John Jaenike, Professor of Biology and Drosophila expert, University of Rochester.
Videos of 2014 SWD trap contents! This year’s monitoring has begun and Anna Wallingford, Postdoctoral Associate in Greg Loeb’s lab at the Experiment Station in Geneva, created a youtube channel, Finger Lakes SWD monitoring, for weekly video updates (every Monday) on what the Loeb lab is finding in traps in and around Geneva. The videos will aim to inform the novice, pointing out various insects that can be found in the traps but also concentrating on those SWD look-a-like drosophilid species that pose challenges when trying to ID the rare, first SWD female(s).
Please post a comment on the Finger Lakes SWD monitoring youtube site or send Anna an email if you have any suggestions on how to make the videos more useful. Also include any ideas for “how to” videos/content that we might produce as Extension materials.
No SWD has been reported, as of June 11, 2014, from any of the monitoring locations in New York. Any confirmed first trap catch SWD findings will once again be posted on the blog.
Current guidelines for managing SWD are to begin insecticide applications on vulnerable crops when fruit are ripening. Late-season blueberries, blackberries and fall raspberries are especially vulnerable to attack. Less vulnerable, but also at risk, are late season plums, peaches, cherries and grapes, and late harvest summer raspberries, early to mid-season blueberries, and early harvest day-neutral strawberries.
Insecticide table quick guides are linked below and available on the Spotted Wing Drosophila website on Cornell Fruit Resources, www.fruit.cornell.edu. If you are reading this from outside of New York, keep in mind that NY State may be more restrictive on labeling insecticides and there may be additional insecticide options available in your state; contact your local Extension Service for more information.