{"id":12080,"date":"2017-03-02T08:19:04","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T13:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/blueberries\/?page_id=12080"},"modified":"2025-09-09T13:40:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T17:40:42","slug":"208-blueberry-tip-midge","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/blueberries\/resources\/insect\/208-blueberry-tip-midge\/","title":{"rendered":"208-Blueberry Tip Midge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fact Sheet No. 208<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Prepared by Judith A. Collins, Assistant Scientist\u00a0and Francis A. Drummond, Professor of Entomology and in cooperation with David Yarborough, Extension Blueberry Specialist, The University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469. February 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Blueberry tip midge (Dasineura oxycoccana<\/em> Johnson: Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), is also referred to as blueberry gall midge or cranberry tipworm. In the 1990s this insect became a major pest of all types of blueberries grown in the southern United States and then spread northward to infest blueberries and cranberries in all of North America. \u00a0It was first detected in Maine in 2004. There has been some confusion as to whether tip midge and cranberry tipworm are the same species, but recent evidence indicates that they are not. The unique biology of the wild blueberry plant and the complex nature of the damage caused by this insect make assessing the impact on blueberry production difficult.<\/p>\n

Description<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"Adult<\/a>
Figure 1.<\/strong> Adult. Photo by Oscar E. Liburd, University of Florida.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Adult tip midge (Figure 1) are small, long-legged, mosquito-like flies < 1\/16 inch in length and smaller than most other types of midges commonly found in wild blueberry fields. Adult midges live for only a one to two days and spend most of their time within the crop canopy.<\/p>\n

Colorless, oblong eggs are laid within leaf buds of rapidly growing blueberry sprouts and quickly pass through three distinct instars or growth stages changing in color from clear to white to light orange (Figure 2). Typically, there is three or four larvae (maggots) present within a leaf gall but occasionally more are found. The last instar drops to the ground and pupates near the soil surface. On wild blueberry, pupation does not occur within the leaf gall as occurs in cranberry.<\/p>\n

Figure 2.<\/strong>\u00a0 Early (white) and late (orange) instar maggots.<\/p>\n\n\t\t