This past week (September 12) saw a sharp increase in the number of SWD trap captures, both in the Blue Hill Peninsula (70.2 flies/trap) and in the Jonesboro area (80.4 flies/trap). Infestation of fruit was found to be 6.4% in the Blue Hill Peninsula and only 0.5% in the Jonesboro area. If the weather warms […]
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A few days ago (the end of August) we started to have a slight surge in SWD trap captures throughout the Downeast area. Average male trap captures ranged from nine to eleven per trap and total SWD ranged from 19 to 31 per trap. We also STARTED to find infested fruit. The percent infestation, where […]
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Last week (August 19) SWD trap captures in both the Blue Hill and Jonesboro area remained stable with little change in adult captures compared to the previous week (Blue Hill = 10-20 flies/trap; Jonesboro = four to six flies/trap). As of last week, we have not detected any SWD in fruit samples. We will be […]
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Last week (August 13) SWD trap captures in the Blue Hill area started to increase dramatically to 10-20 flies/trap. In the Columbus and Jonesboro area, trap capture increased to four to six SWD/trap. As of last week, there was still NO detectable SWD larval infestations in the fruit. We will be sampling the traps and […]
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SWD adults are still being trapped in single numbers. This suggests that the population has not started to build yet, although it is anticipated that this might occur in the next seven-ten days. As of yet, we have NOT yet found any wild blueberry fields that have SWD infested berries, although blueberry maggots have been […]
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Last week we captured SWD in traps that were placed in Jonesboro. So far, SWD has been captured in a few fields in Coastal Maine, the Blue Hill area and in Jonesboro. SWD was also captured in Nova Scotia last week. Please deploy traps if you have not already done so and monitor them at […]
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The spotted wing drosophila is starting to be detected in both southern and parts of Downeast Maine. David Handley, who has been sampling highbush blueberry and raspberry fields have reported trap captures of spotted wing drosophila in Cape Elizabeth, Buxton, Turner, and Wales. In wild blueberry fields, MALE SWD has been captured in Blue Hill […]
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Fact sheet for SWD management in Michigan Highbush blueberries: SWD Management Recommendations for Michigan Blueberry, Updated June 2014 (PDF), which is very informative and includes a table with rain steadfast properties of some of the SWD insecticides. SWD Management Recommendations for Michigan Blueberry, Updated June 2014 (PDF) (Michigan State University College of Agriculture & Natural Resources […]
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There have been some reports of localized patchy frost damage the last week of May followed by Botrytis symptoms showing up this week. Frost will make blossoms more susceptible to Botrytis infection. I have heard this from growers in the Union area and around the Orland area. In one field, we saw low levels of […]
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Frost In Northern Hancock at our Silsby Plains site and at our Deblois and Cherryfield weather station locations in Washington County, there were frost conditions overnight from Wednesday, May 28 to Thursday, May 29. Lee Beers is a Ph.D. student studying cold tolerance in blueberries and his research has found conditions from 28ºF to 24ºF […]
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