the lure of Coca Cola ..... - Page 3

 

On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:15:59 +1000, gardenlen wrote:



then you are not trapping enough males and/or there are other sources
around.

1) do your traps prevent the flies from physically walking out?
2) At one stage, the various DPI incantations suggested "dakpots" which
were just a tin on he side open at one end with a bit of chemical
impregnated canite(?) in it. It attracted and poisoned the males.



err, fluit fly do not stop for nets


If you have lots of gardeners around affected, then you will need to all
take action.

 

g'day terry,

wow some big judgement been made here, we have ben trapping male flies
for a decade now and until recent times it was a very effective tool,
but now not so in 2 weekly period the season before last (when we got
hit the hardest ever) we trapped about 900 male flies giver or take,
yet our total crop ot tomato's, pawpaw's and star fruit were decimated
not a single piece of fruit could used. we run our male traps all year
as the males can be around at odd seasons.

we make traps to allow air flow and attract the most flies with the
wick it is very rare for a fly to not succumb to the wick.

and yes netting does work i don't understand how it wouldn't many
gardeners resort to it, and we did last year with our tom's and star
fruit and w got good fruit to eat little or no fly damage.

our traps closely ressemble thos dak pot typs thing fruit growers use
they are very open as they need to be for teh male fly we find the
bottle captures all dead insects so we can monitor fly levels that
way.

now if this coke thing works the female trap will be made so as if a
fly gets in it won't get out as much as we possibly can make it.

now as we feel some other gardener somewhere has a fruit tree that
attracts the f/f and they then aren't doing husbandry to collect and
desroy that damaged fruit, or pick the fruit long before it ripens or
what ever action needs to be taken, then we don't know who they are
they could be anywhere up to maybe 4k away.

so we have to deal with this issue on sight, if i find something that
works i will pass it on, with no comments let the user beware so to
speak.

hope tha clears up any misgivings you may have? and should you find an
effective female cntrol mechanism please let all gardeners know.



On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:20:07 +0000 (UTC), terryc

snipped
--

Matthew 25:13 KJV
"Watch therefore, for ye know neither
the day nor the hour wherein the Son
of man cometh"

Mark 13:33 "Take ye heed, watch and pray:
for ye know not when the time is".

len

With peace and brightest of blessings,

"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

 


Your current findings interest me, because I'm comparing it with my
experience using a couple of homemade fruit fly traps about 7 years ago.
My recollection is of catching overwhelmingly FEMALE+- flies.  I recognised
them as female by the long sting-like organ, the ovipositor, at the tip
of their abdomen.  Almost all the fruit flies trapped were of this
description, so I reckoned it was an effective trap for the females. From
memory, it used the usual kitchen concoction of honey or sugar, vegemite,
etc.  I'll check with google, as I probably wrote a bit about it at the
time, I was so impressed at what a simple lure could achieve.

I recall hearing that the recommendation for the pheromone sprays was
to spray it all over the foliage, and the females would lay their eggs
whereever they were attracted to, and on the balance of probability
this would most times be leaf rather than fruit.

Unless the males need the fruit sugar as a nutrient, there is little
other cause they would have to unerringly home in on anything
specifically resembling a fruit.  Males would be singlemindedly seeking
females. Only if the humble fruit fly were to be staunchly monogamous
(or the males a 'one-shot wonder' ) would it seem that the trapping of
males could be an effective practical measure in preventing significant
fruit damage by the pest, IMHO.

The best lure for a male might be a captive female. So maybe a trap
that has first caught a few females might in turn become an effective
lure for for males?
--
John Savage                (my news address is not valid for email)

 

g'day john,

in the past the female trap solutions have worked but not here in this
area, hwy i got no idea. we have some recipes on our remedies page,
ans as yet i have not heard back from anyone who has had success with
trapping females. many gardeners up her share our issues. didn't trap
a single female out of 3 or 4 different recipe traps last season.

there is a natural lure substance than needs to be sprayed around it
does warn not to get it on the fuit and it is a bee killer. so many
won'tuse it, it doesn't work as a female trap so far as others have
told me. and it is too expensive o buy and try also, but the bee bit
is enough for me.

trappng males has ben effective in the past, i don't know whether
males or even females are one hit wonders, would be interestig to
know, but may not help with management, i feel they all just merrily
keep mating on all season by the looks of our current issue here.

we run 6 male traps all year here about every 2 to 3 months through
summer we replace one on a rotatinal basis, they continue to work for
nearly a year. teh male bottles don't need to be trap botles and keep
the fly in once he is inside as it is the aroma of the wick that
attracts him and once he lands on the wick he gets a dose of
insecticide or he maybe even gets a wiff of the insecticide, so though
a male may exit teh bottle there is nothing to say he still will not
succumb. our trap vey similar to what i have seen on fruit farms. you
could just hand a wick out in the open it would still work only then
you can't monitor fly levels.

with the male traps they are away from the garden so there is no
conflict of arom's and if there was an effective female trap then i
can see it would be not so good to hang it near the fruiting plant as
the aroma of ripening fruit may over ride the aroma of he bottle and
then he effectiveness is diminited.

if you research their mating habits let us know, if anyone finds an
effective female trap ingredient there are many gardeners out there
who would like to hear about nothing more tedious than netting tom's
and capsicums whatever.

the best wick is the one tha looks like a cotton wool roll tight
wadded the one in the plastic holder not so good.

On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:37:53 +0000 (UTC), John Savage
snipped
--

Matthew 25:13 KJV
"Watch therefore, for ye know neither
the day nor the hour wherein the Son
of man cometh"

Mark 13:33 "Take ye heed, watch and pray:
for ye know not when the time is".

len

With peace and brightest of blessings,

"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

 


Ah! I misunderstood you. I associate you with homemade lures and traps, so
when you said you were trapping mostly males, I pictured your vegemite +
sugar, etc., lure to be attracting a few females but lots of males. I see now
that you are using separate traps. (Though I wonder whether you couldn't
combine them, with the wick placed in the neck of the jar well above the
liquid lure? Especially if you could arrange for the females to not drown
or die, this would allow their natural pheromones to continue beckoning
in hordes of males.)

Anyway, by coincidence, on Don Burke's radio gardening program today
an expert was discussing fruit-fly traps. He said that as soon as females
emerge they head for a source of protein as this is required to get their
eggs developing. Once they have fed, their mission then becomes to find
a male and after that a suitable fruit to deposit their eggs. He said that
you have to catch them as soon as they hatch and before they get that
first protein feed otherwise they are not interested in your lure. From
this I would conclude that you'd need to have your female lures set right
from the word go, so they stand a good chance of intercepting those early
hungry virgin females.

The expert on the radio didn't explain exactly what sources of protein the
females would typically seek out, but I know yeast is a source of protein,
whereas sugar is not.  The trap he was talking about was Eeco Natura Lure.

I recall reporting here some years ago on an article I'd read, where the
finding was that fruit-flies are strongly attracted to certain colours.
This varied with the species, but I recall bright purple being a strong
attraction for one species. (I'd guess they were talking about female
flies, with the idea being to have hanging around your garden lots of
sticky objects of the fly's preferred colour. That sticky fly paper that
you can hang from the ceiling could be a source of sticky stuff to put
near a bright purple plastic bottle. Or you could put your vegemite lure
inside a purple plastic bottle to give it an even stronger allure.

If, despite high levels of fly infestation, you are managing to trap few
females, perhaps they are hatching earlier than you allow for, or perhaps
the protein source or the Winter refuge for the flies is in a new location
where they are now hatching nearer to a source of protein than to your
traps?  Thus they never pass by your lure, at least, not until they have
mated and are scoping out your back garden for some fruit in which to
deposit their eggs. It does seem counter-intuitive, but instead of
hanging female traps all around your own garden, maybe you need to
search for that person in the neighbourhood who is allowing fallen fruit
to rot on the ground and ask may you hang a few hundred female traps
throughout their backyard instead of yours during Spring and Summer?!

Good luck with your Spring trapping! Maybe there's a market for the pelts?

BTW, do you still have your eco-friendly "enviro throne" there Len?
--
John Savage                (my news address is not valid for email)