Last season I was busy and didn't get around to netting the Cherry Guava and Feijoa and as a consequence we basically got no fruit ( it was all stung).
Whilst netting works, it requires a couple of things - keeping the tree within the bounds of the frame (pruning each season) and netting after the fruit has set. Placing netting over a medium sized tree is a bit challenging - I use a leaf rake to move it over the high part of the frame.
So I'm going to try traps again - Wild May as an attractant for the male fly and
the Cera trap for both:
I purchased six of them from Green Harvest and have hung them on individual fruit trees
- the cherry guava, tropical nectarine, tropical peach , kumquat, beside 1 feijoa and on the mandarin. I've also reset the Wild May traps (x3) that I haven't used for a couple of years. Even though we are moving into the cooler months fruit fly seem to stay active around here and even sting our citrus.
The Cera web site is OK - there is a simulation where the effect of not having enough traps is made obvious so I hope six traps will do the job for us but I may have to purchase a few more later.
http://www.ceratrap.com/
It will take awhile to assess this strategy compared to netting - the other advantage of netting is protection from possums and rats that this will not address however.
Thanks to Robyn at the garden club for bringing this type of trap to my attention
