Vinegar flies / fruit flies
Posted: 23 Dec 2018, 14:35
Fruit flies and vinegar flies are common through out Australia and there are many different species.
Here in Perth/WA the Mediterranean Fruit fly is a major introduced pest.
Attempts to eradicate it failed long before I was born but it remains a “declared pest”.
As a teenager my family owned a Mandarin orchard and I spent far too many hours involved in the control of Mediterranean fruit fly.
The Queensland fruit fly has similar impact on the east coast, although this is a native species.
Mediterranean fruit fly prefer to lay there eggs in ripening fruit that is hanging on the tree. This “struck” fruit will have a small hole in the skin and will usually drop from the tree prematurely. The rotting fruit under the tree, full of Mediterranean fruit fly larva, was infected while it was still hanging on the tree and is now completing the life cycle on the ground.
Vinegar flies are generally much smaller (not much more than 1 mm) and have a preference for rotten fruit. They are the small flies hanging around your fruit bowl, that you forgot to empty a week or so ago, or the compost bin.
Vinegar flies are generally the ones we cultivate in Aviculture, using rotten fruit in a bucket with a lid. Small holes allow the flies entry and exit and keep the birds away from the rotting fruit.
This allows the birds access to a small supply of live food, but also encourages their natural foraging behaviour.
So who cares, fruit flies / vinegar flies … so what.
Well not the aviculturalist, live food is live food.
However, the orchardist next door may have a different view.
So when he lazily leans over the fence one Sunday afternoon and asks “What's in the bucket”, don't say fruit fly as he is likely to have an apoplectic fit.
The politically correct term is vinegar flies and they do no harm to anyone
Here in Perth/WA the Mediterranean Fruit fly is a major introduced pest.
Attempts to eradicate it failed long before I was born but it remains a “declared pest”.
As a teenager my family owned a Mandarin orchard and I spent far too many hours involved in the control of Mediterranean fruit fly.
The Queensland fruit fly has similar impact on the east coast, although this is a native species.
Mediterranean fruit fly prefer to lay there eggs in ripening fruit that is hanging on the tree. This “struck” fruit will have a small hole in the skin and will usually drop from the tree prematurely. The rotting fruit under the tree, full of Mediterranean fruit fly larva, was infected while it was still hanging on the tree and is now completing the life cycle on the ground.
Vinegar flies are generally much smaller (not much more than 1 mm) and have a preference for rotten fruit. They are the small flies hanging around your fruit bowl, that you forgot to empty a week or so ago, or the compost bin.
Vinegar flies are generally the ones we cultivate in Aviculture, using rotten fruit in a bucket with a lid. Small holes allow the flies entry and exit and keep the birds away from the rotting fruit.
This allows the birds access to a small supply of live food, but also encourages their natural foraging behaviour.
So who cares, fruit flies / vinegar flies … so what.
Well not the aviculturalist, live food is live food.
However, the orchardist next door may have a different view.
So when he lazily leans over the fence one Sunday afternoon and asks “What's in the bucket”, don't say fruit fly as he is likely to have an apoplectic fit.
The politically correct term is vinegar flies and they do no harm to anyone