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Male Only Queensland Fruit Fly Lure Scam

 

Male Queensland Fruit Fly
Male Queensland Fruit Fly

Every year several farmers get badly hammered by Queensland Fruit Fly as they devastate their crops. Sometime they attack crop even at a very early stage when fruits are very small. Once few maggots enter the fruit, the plant drops the green pod and the crop is ruined. Adult fly lays eggs in the fruit. The larva then feeds on the flesh. Affected fruits are easily recognizable since the infected portion starts to develop rots and the skin around the stink mark turns discolored. It is a very grim situation for any farmer. The damage is very severe around mid and late summer compared to other times.

 

Every year fruit production industry suffers loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in damaged crops. Substantial amount of money is also spent each year to manage and control Queensland Fruit Fly. This results in reduction of fresh produce from valuable interstate and overseas markets. This in turn diminishes income and job opportunities in the affected regions. This also leads to rise in price of the produce and limits the availability.

 

There are many organic ways to control the damage caused by Queensland Fruit Fly. Most popular of them is the fruit fly lure that attracts and kills range of male flies. These male lure traps are hanged under the shady canopy where male flies tend to rest. But there is a serious problem with male only lure traps for two reasons:

1 – It only takes one male to fertilize hundreds of females. Can any trap guarantee 100% annihilation of male Queensland Fruit Fly? It outright sounds impossible, isn’t it?

2 – Males do not lay eggs in the fruit, it is female flies that do so. So it’s the females that need to be actually controlled.

Controlling only the males would mean every farmer in the district literally has to use this lure to be effective.

 

An ideal lure should be such that is equally effective on both male and female flies, for example Eco-Naturalure from OCP. The lure attracts both male and female fruit flies. It uses specific food based attractants and bacteria-derived insecticide called Spinosad.  Both male and female fruit flies are attracted by the lure and consume the bait, killing them by the organic insecticide.

 

The best thing about Eco-Naturalure is that it only targets fruit fly and does not harm beneficial insects that protects our eco system. Eco-Naturalure is not required to be applied throughout the whole tree. It just needs to be applied as a spot spray in 30cm patches around the plant foliage. It needs to be applied weekly and specially after the rain.

 

It is important to start protection measures early in the season as the female fruit flies can sting the fruit at a very early stage when they are just as small as a marble. Early application of Eco-Naturalure will prevent their number to explode later in the season. Since the lure uses organic insecticide, there is no withholding period even if it gets on the fruit. The product is registered with ‘Australian Organic Registered Garden Product’ and so you can be rest assured about the product in every way.

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