First capture(s) in eastern WA have occurred - three regions - see below. Note that both Oregon and British Columbia have caught flies.

SEE new info on Entrust SLN below - Good news for organic cherry growers!

SWD 2011 trap captures for eastern WA - updated 27 June, 2011

Wednesday, June 29:  A revised SLN for Entrust was issued yesterday, 28 June.  This revised label allows essentially the same use pattern as the main label, except that the PHI is 3 days instead of 7.  The revised label allows 9 oz/season and a maximum rate of 2.5 oz/application.  This supersedes the earlier SLN released 3 May. The revision was based on the study by David Haviland in California earlier this year, and should be extremely helpful to organic cherry growers.

Monday, June 27:  Three regions have now caught flies, although numbers are very low.  Expect more regions to have first capture in the next few weeks. With harvest underway in some of the earlier areas, most of the later areas will close to, if not at, the susceptible stage for attack (blush).  Continue cherry fruit fly control in the meantime if your area has not yet caught flies.

Thursday, 9 June:  We have the first 2011 capture of SWD in eastern WA from a trap collected yesterday, June 8; 1 male in an ACV trap in the Tri-Cities area.  We are recommending that growers in this region begin crop protection sprays when their cherries reach a susceptible stage (blush). 

Friday, 3 June 2011:  We are still fly-free here in eastern WA, but not because we haven't been looking.  Between the Beers and Walsh programs, we are looking at ca. 666 traps each week, and have processed some 3,473 samples!  That's a lot of apple cider vinegar.  Still lots of nontarget drosophila, just not SWD.

A new feature of this website in beta testing is the ability to create custom charts from our trap database (see link at bottom of page).  You can create an xy chart plot of avg. flies/trap/week over time, or a bar graph by crop or region.  The xy plots can be narrowed by region, crop, or growing regime (organic/conv).  A new feature we are testing is the ability to make custom lists of your traps - if you know your trapcode(s), you can enter it, and have only your traps plotted.  You can browse the 2010 data, and now the 2011 data (its all zeros...).  To find the trapcode, just look at the trap in your orchard, find the white plastic laminated barcode label on the side, and the human-readable translation will be in tiny letters on the below the bars.  All Beers program traps are barcoded, with format "BE-XXX-NNN".  (The BE is for BEERS).  All letters should all be uppercase.

Let us know how it works. 

 Friday, 27 May 2011.  Still no SWD in eastern Washington traps as the early cherry districts head into straw color. Cool weather has kept crop (and insect) development up to several weeks behind normal, so it may be a while before we catch anything.  Or not.  Note that finding hundreds of "other" drosophila in our traps is common - the new record is ca. 2500 of non-pest drosophila in one trap. 

Tuesday, 24 May 2011. The Cherry Maximum Residue Level (MRL) reports are out and available on the Tree Fruit Research Commission's website, www.treefruitresearch.com

As you develop your program for 2011, remember that the flip side of the coin for zero residues may be no fruit protection left, either!

Friday, 20 May 2011. Its been another quiet week in the SWD trapping program - over 2,560 samples processed between the Beers and Walsh programs, with lots of other drosophila in the traps, but no SWD.  We have good coverage of eastern Washington's fruit growing regions from a geographic standpoint (Canadian Border to Tri-Ciites, and along Oregon border) and in crops (cherry, peach, nectarine, apricot, pluot, apple pear, blueberry, raspberry).  Thanks again to all the fieldmen who helped us site these traps.

The graphing feature of the website (where you can graph by region, crop, organic/conv etc) is available for testing for the 2010 data --See the link at the bottom of the page.  The 2011 data will become functional as soon as we have something besides zero's. 

The MRL study done this spring in California is completed and the report should be available sometime next week - stay tuned. 

5 May: FIRST CAPTURE has occurred in Hood River, according to Peter Shearer...an adult female from a backyard apple cider vinegar (ACV) trap. 

3 May: A Washington state SLN (Special Local Needs, or 24(c)) for spotted wing drosophila control with Entrust was issued  May 3, 2011. This label allows use of Entrust with a 3-day PHI (the main label specificies a 7 day PHI); however, the SLN label is limited to a total of 6 oz per year and 2 oz per application.  When three applications are made, one may be made up to 30 days PHI, another up to 10 days PHI, and a third at 3 days PHI.   This SLN may be of more utility to conventional growers seeking a short PHI material for use close to harvest; depending on pressure, organic growers may prefer to use the 9 oz/7 day PHI limits on the main label.

General Comments:

If you believe you have a first catch in a region in a non-program trap, please save the specimen(s) for confirmation, and contact Elizabeth Beers (ebeers@wsu.edu) or Peter Smytheman (peter_smytheman@wsu.edu).

The WSU recommendations for Spotted Wing Drosophila control in eastern Washington cherries are now available on this website, and will be sent out via the email notification list.  To sign up for the notification list, click here. 

Western WA small fruit growers can find specific information on the Mt. Vernon web site.

Browse charted SWD catch data from 2010 or [NEW!] 2011