For those growing delicious small fruits, including cherries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries, on a U-pick farm or even your backyard, now is the time to be on the lookout for spotted-wing drosophila (SWD), especially if your berries are ripe or in the ripening stage. Most of you are likely familiar with SWD (Figure 1),[Read More…]
Elizabeth Yim Long
Depending on where you are in the state, your fruit trees may be nearing the end of petal fall or already beginning fruit set! This is an important time to pay close attention to your pheromone-baited monitoring traps for captures of codling moth (Figure 1) that you are all likely familiar with. You’ve likely already[Read More…]
Time flies and now we’re in May! I’m guessing that most fruit trees throughout the state are somewhere between bloom and petal fall, so now is the time for tree fruit producers to use mating disruption strategies against tree fruit pests, like codling moth and dogwood borer, especially if you’ve had issues with these insects[Read More…]
Throughout the state, most of us are in some stage of tree fruit bloom and as fruit producers, you all know how important insect pollinators are for ensuring good fruit set and even quality! Whether you’re producing tree fruits, nuts, or small fruit (even grapes, although they aren’t dependent on insect pollinators), we know that[Read More…]
Beginner and experienced tree fruit producers will want to be on the lookout now for a few mite and insect pests of tree fruit: the European Red Mite, Rosy Apple Aphid, and San Jose Scale. With the back-and-forth between warm and cool temperatures this spring, you may have fruit trees at different stages of development,[Read More…]
Just a reminder to all fruit producers to organize and prep your fruit insect monitoring tools for the upcoming season! Depending on your fruit crop and location in the state, there’s a suite of fruit insects that are important for you to track, including moths, aphids, scales, stink bugs, fruit and vinegar flies, and[Read More…]
We were all hoping it would happen later, but unfortunately the spotted lanternfly (SLF) (Lycorma delicatula) (Figure 1), an invasive planthopper with a piercing-sucking feeding strategy, was officially detected in Vevay, Indiana (Switzerland County) for the first time in July 2021. You can see pictures and read more about the detection at the Indiana Department[Read More…]
Updates on Spotted-wing Drosophila (SWD) activity in Indiana blueberries Zihan (Lilac) Hong and Elizabeth Y. Long, Purdue Entomology Summer is a time we always look forward to delicious fresh fruit! According to the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture, 150+ farms grow some 600 acres of blueberries in Indiana! Some common varieties include Bluecrop, Bluejay, Blueray,[Read More…]
I am a bit late on the topic of bees for fruit pollination, especially tree fruit, but I wonder how many readers use or maintain spring mason bees for pollination of tree fruits? If not for pollination, then perhaps just for fun? (Figure 1). If not, you might consider this for next season! Those who[Read More…]
A natural wonder will occur in 15 states this year: the emergence of the Brood X, 17-year periodical cicadas! Also known as “17-year or 13-year locusts” the last mass emergence of these insects occurred in 2004. Now, 17 years later, the immature cicadas will emerge from the ground, molt one last time to gain wings,[Read More…]