Grower Services - Insects (Maine Cranberries)

PHOTO Collection (for ID purposes)

Insect Pests (of cranberry) Found on Maine Commercial Cranberry Beds (those that are found most often and most consistently):

• Cranberry Tipworm - Dasineura oxycoccana (Johnson)
• Cranberry Fruitworm – Acrobasis vaccinii (Riley)
• False Armyworm – Xylena nupera (Lintner)
• Blackheaded Fireworm – Rhopobota naevana (Hübner)
• Gypsy Moth – Lymantria dispar (L.)
• Cranberry Weevil - Anthonomus musculus (Say)
• Cranberry Blossomworm – Epiglaea apiata (Grote)
• Spanworms (green spanworm, horned spanworm, chainspotted geometer, etc.)

Emerging Insect Pests and/or Pests Less Commonly Encountered on Maine Commercial Cranberry Beds:

• Potentially a problem in the future (new invasive spanworm pest): Winter Moth [not yet reported or confirmed on any Maine cranberry beds, but it is possible they could show up much more noticeably in the future]. The Bangor Daily reported on this pest on June 5th, 2012: Bangor Daily Story
  
• Hill Fireworm – Tulsa (=Tlascala) finitella (Wlk.) [encountered only once to date, and only a single larva at that!]
• Humped Green Fruitworm - Amphipyra pyramidoides (Guenée) [relatively rare but a few of these larvae are usually encountered each year at perhaps 5% of the locations that are monitored statewide, but never--thus far--at threshold levels except when added to False Armyworm counts]
• Redheaded (Red-headed) Flea Beetle - Systena frontalis (F.) [two sites in 2009--heavy outbreak at 1 of those sites; now up to three sites as of the 2010 season, with fairly high numbers at 2 of the 3 sites]
• Blunt-nosed Leafhopper - Limotettix (=Scleroracus) vaccinii (Van Duzee)[2 sites in 2009 and 3 sites in 2010; very heavy outbreak at 1 of those sites in 2009]
• Sparganothis Fruitworm - Sparganothis sulfureana (Clemens) [Larvae are rarely detected anymore in commercial Maine cranberry beds, even at organic sites, but moths are captured easily and consistently from year to year whenever pheromone traps are used - though generally not in very high numbers; trap counts are often so low that it is difficult to judge when the peak flight has taken place]
• Cranberry Girdler - Chrysoteuchia topiaria (Zeller) [larvae have not been found as yet on any Maine cranberry beds whenever searches have been conducted, but the moths are seen commonly]
• Sawfly larvae - (Action threshold is 30 to 40 per 25 sweeps) (Found in Maine most often in June) NOTE: Adult is a small, solitary, non-stinging wasp; [Have not ever been found at threshold yet in any Maine commercial cranberry bed, though it was close once in 1999 at one location in eastern Washington County] Wikipedia has a nice page about sawflies at this address: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawfly

see also:

• Photo collection (one page) of Maine cranberry insect pests (MS Word) (pdf) (Included in the Maine Cranberry Pest Management Guide)

Cranberry questions? Contact Charles Armstrong, Cranberry Professional. University of Maine Cooperative Extension || Pest Management Office || 491 College Avenue || Orono, ME 04473-1295 || Tel: 207.581.2967 [email: charles.armstrong@maine.edu]