Fresh cherries from your own tree are extremely tasty, but please without maggots. There are a few ways to combat these so that the cherries do not become inedible.
The cherry fruit fly (Rhagoletis cerasi) is a pest that spoils the cherry harvest for many hobby gardeners year after year. Because when you pick cherries from the tree and take a good bite of them, you don't necessarily want to see a white worm or maggot slithering along the pit of the cherry.
The cherry fruit fly lays its eggs in the ripening cherries. These then hatch and the maggots eat their way through the cherry to the stone. This turns the inside of the cherries into a rather brownish pulp in the places where the maggots have feasted. Chemical agents against the cherry fruit fly are now no longer permitted in domestic gardens in Germany - and this raises the question of how to get rid of the annoying flies and protect the cherry tree from infestation by the fruit fly.
Cherry fruit fly - This is what it looks like
The cherry fruit fly is similar to the housefly. But if you take a closer look, you can quickly see the differences. With a length of around 5 mm, the cherry fruit fly comes with brownish cross-banded wings, green compound eyes and a conspicuous trapezoidal yellow dorsal shield. In this respect, you can definitely recognize the cherry fruit fly in the garden.
The problem is that the number of flies is usually so large that simple control measures are often unsuccessful. If you really want to ban the cherry fruit fly from your garden, you need to use a mix of the tips and advice below. Because only if you combine the individual methods can you really have lasting success in controlling the cherry fruit fly.
3 Methods to Control Cherry Fruit Fly
There are basically three ways to approach the matter if you want to protect your own garden from the cherry fruit fly. Briefly summarized are the following:
- Precaution when plantingcherry trees,
- direct control of the cherry fruit fly in old trees and
- after picking, trying to get rid of the maggots.
Avoid cherry fruit flies by choosing the right cherry tree variety
The cherry fruit fly is mainly active at the end of May and beginning of June. She lays her eggs in cherries, which are beginning to ripen at this point - they are no longer green, but are slowly turning from a yellowish to a reddish colour. But there are also cherry varieties that are largely spared from cherry fruit flies from the outset. Simply because the fruits of these trees are long past this stage of maturity at the time. Early cherries are therefore significantly less susceptible to infestation by cherry fruit flies than normally flowering or late cherries. So if you want to plant a new cherry tree, it's worth thinking about planting an early cherry.
Another point is the conscious reduction of the size of the cherry tree. Be it through targeted pruning of the tree or by choosing a base from the outset in which the cherry tree grows rather weakly. In this way, the fruit trees stay longer in a size that can easily be protected from cherry fruit flies with an appropriate insect protection net.
Keep away cherry fruit flies in existing trees
There are different approaches. In any case, you should inform yourself sufficiently about the cherry fruit fly if you want to take really effective countermeasures. Things to know include the fact that the pupated cherry fruit flies, once in the soil, hatch in late May - early June and then lay their eggs in the new cherries over a period of around 14 days . This is the period when countermeasures against the cherry fruit fly must be taken. Anyone who takes any measures against the cherry fruit fly much earlier, for example when the cherry trees are in blossom, cannot be successful - simply because the animals are not there at that time.
In the following we would like to present some options for combating the cherry fruit fly and also briefly present the respective chances of success. Some recommended measures are only suitable under certain circumstances - others can always be applied to any cherry tree.
❍ Yellow boards as traps for the cherry fruit flies
The cherry fruit fly becomes magical from the color yellowdressed. No wonder, since she usually lays her eggs in the cherries when they are shimmering yellowish to light red. If you hang up so-called yellow boards (e.g. available here) on the south side of your cherry tree during the main flight season of the cherry fruit flies, you will quickly have the glued spots on the yellow boards occupied by cherry flies. This will definitely deter a lot of the pests from your tree - but usually not all of them.
Only with really small cherry trees is it sufficient to hang yellow boards in the tree and let the cherry fruit flies die on them. For larger trees, yellow panels are at best an indicator of how many cherry fruit flies are out this year and whether the period of activity of these flies has already begun. Further measures must also be taken here.
❍ Insect nets to protect against cherry fruit flies
Another means that is only suitable for smaller trees or for sections of a cherry tree: protecting the fruit with the help of an appropriate net. Nets suitable for protecting against cherry fruit flies can be found at any hardware store with a good garden section. However, you have to make sure that the stitches are not too wide. The mesh size should not be more than 1.8 mm - some fruit growers even use nets with a mesh size of less than 1 mm (e.g. available here). If there are wider holes in the net, there is a risk that the cherry fruit fly will simply slip through the mesh and still lay its eggs in the cherries. The net is also good protection against starlings.
As mentioned, such a net is ideal for smaller cherry trees. With old trees, some of which exceed the height of a house and have very spreading branches, it is difficult to protect the entire tree crown with a net. Here it is worth protecting smaller parts of the tree with such a net - the amount of cherries hanging on the protected parts is often sufficient for consumption in your own household.
❍ Prevent pupation with larger bases
The larvae of the cherry fruit fly either drop to the ground from the eaten cherries or fall off the tree with the cherries and then crawl into the ground. There they pupate and finally wait for the next year to lay their eggs in the new cherries as cherry fruit flies. IfIf you want to ensure that as few cherry fruit flies as possible roam your home garden the following year, there is an easy way to ensure this.
Place a tarpaulin or fleece under the cherry tree so that any falling cherries and any maggots that fall to the ground do not come into direct contact with the earth but land on this broadly laid out base. Then, at least once a day, you sweep up what has collected on the surface, throw maggots and fallen fruit into a transparent and tightly closable garbage bag and leave it in the sun. The resulting heat kills the maggots and the contents of the bag can be put on the compost after a few days.
It is even safer and associated with significantly less torture for the animals, to dispose of fallen fruit and maggots directly in the organic bin. This will significantly reduce the cherry fruit fly population in your own garden and next year you can be sure that yellow traps will be enough to keep most cherries from being infested by the cherry fruit fly.
Control of cherry fruit fly infestations
Some cherry lovers are disgusted when they open a cherry and a maggot crawls through the flesh. Others say that this is a completely natural process and ultimately a maggot infestation is a sign that unnecessary chemicals are not being used in the garden. You don't necessarily want to eat the maggot of the cherry fruit fly.
There aren't many ways to get rid of maggots on cherries. Of course you can open the cherries, remove the maggot and the pit and then eat the pitted cherry. But that's quite cumbersome.
❍ Take a water bath
The only real alternative is a water bath of the cherries. If cherries sit in cold water for more than ten minutes, they will start absorbing the water. When cherries soak up water, the maggot in the cherry is not at all comfortable - the result is that the maggot leaves the cherry. Before long you will see a whole bunch of small maggots swimming on the surface of the water. You can skim these off and throw them in the organic waste bin.
However, it must be said that this method does not necessarily make all cherries really free of worms or maggots. Some maggots are more persistent than others and just stay in the cherry. There is no real panacea here. But if you don't throw away the entire harvestIf you want, it's definitely worth a try. Success is more than 75 percent.
Conclusion:
If the cherry tree is infested with cherry fruit flies, it's not something you just have to put up with. In fact, there are a number of ways to get rid of the cherry fruit fly and its maggots.