Treatment for cherry fly worms in the cherries

[demi]

The cherrie fly life cycle is the fly lays an egg on a cherry on the tree, a worm hatches out, eats the cherry, then when the cherry falls to the ground it says there all winter, then in the spring the fly hatches out and the cycle begins again.

The organic way of dealing with this is to not leave any cherries on the trees or on the ground, to break the cycle and reduce the cherry fly population.

Here they paint the trees with 'var' which is calcium carbonate solution ( limestone ) to kill any parasites into the bark of the tree.

We make money off selling the cherries and they dont buy them with worms, so we need to be as effective in preventing them as possible.

My question is, could you treat the soil under the tree with var, spraying it on and digging it in then spraying the topsoil again along with the bark on the tree. Would this affect the soil or the tree? The soil should be acidic under the tree from the fallen cherries, and the limestone is alkaline so it should nurtalize it to some extent. Would this be a problem?

Spraying with var along with the organic method of not leaving any cherries should increase the sucsess rate, that is if it were to work.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

First thing, calcium carbonate (chalk, limestone) is insoluble in water, so whatever they are spraying, it isn't that. It could be slacked lime (calcium hydroxide), which you'd need to be a little careful adding to soil in any quantity as it is relatively strongly alkaline.

Organic controls I can think of:

- Spreading wood ash around the tree;
- Lightly cultivating the soil (a hand harrow would be good) during the winter. The pupa are sensitive to the cold, which is why they burrow down, so bringing them to the surface and letting the frost get to them is effective. I suppose you could also set the chickens on them.
- Sticky traps for the adults might also help. Here we can buy a sort of non-setting glue for painting on trees (I think it is based on rosin) that traps anything climbing the trunk. This baited with a little sal volatile (ammonium carbonate - smelling salts) and painted on trunk and branches should thin them out a bit. Avoid horizontal branches as you may end up trapping small birds.

[demi]

I'm pretty sure its calcium carbonate. Its white and it settles on the bottom and you have to mix it before you use it. They use it as paint here, we've got it on our walls in the house, and they also put it in plaster mixed with cement to plaster the walls. But I'll double check with OH.

We do cultivate the soil around the trees with the tiller at the moment as we don't have any livestalk yet to eat the grass and weeds.
We will be getting chickens in the orchard, i forgot they eat all the fallen fruit. I like that idea.
Not heard of the sicky traps but i'll ask about it.
And will try the wood ash. Can you put wood ash if you've got chickens there?

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Its white and it settles on the bottom and you have to mix it before you use it. They use it as paint here, we've got it on our walls in the house, and they also put it in plaster mixed with cement to plaster the walls.

OK - if it's a suspension rather than a solution then it might well be, though - to be honest - I can't imagine for the life of me that it would do much to any pests. Slacked lime, yes; chalk, no. But I've been wrong before. That time in 1992, for example.

If it were me, I'd lightly cultivate first and catch some frosts, then let the chickens at it and spread wood ash in the dying days of winter. I doubt the ash would harm the hens, but I couldn't be sure.

[contadina]

Lot's of people over here use limewash to whitewash the trunks of the trees to serve as a disinfectant, deter insects and prevent sun scold, so I think that RRF is correct in saying that it is probably slaked lime. I personally think it looks atrocious so have, up till now resigned myself that we will lose some cherries each year, but I'll try some of RRF's suggestions, especially on my amarena trees.

[demi]

OH says is probably is calcium hydroxide.

So its not good to spray it on the soil to kill the worms then.

We will try the other methods you've recomended.

Thanks for that

[merlin]

Yes, it is calcium hydroxide, I use it on the trees and mix it with copper sulphate for the vineyard, it kind of works suppressing the bugs on the trees, but I have started using a product for the cherry, it works jolly well, the agro apteka sugested it, apparently it is low impact, anyway, I get to eat all my cherries now.
One thng you can do to ensure that you have no worms in the cherries if you are selling them. Put them in a tub of water overnight. You will find all the worms at the bottom of the tub in the morning.

[demi]

Yes, it is calcium hydroxide, I use it on the trees and mix it with copper sulphate for the vineyard, it kind of works suppressing the bugs on the trees, but I have started using a product for the cherry, it works jolly well, the agro apteka sugested it, apparently it is low impact, anyway, I get to eat all my cherries now.
One thng you can do to ensure that you have no worms in the cherries if you are selling them. Put them in a tub of water overnight. You will find all the worms at the bottom of the tub in the morning.

Thats a really good idea putting the cherries in a bucket of water. I'll definetly do that for our cherries but i don't think its practicle to do it to all the one's we're selling becuase if they get moved about too much the get bashed and it would be too time consuming to do it to all of them. The one's we sell go straight to be sold once we've picked them from the trees because they go off too quickly it the heat.

[gray_bale]

Yes, it is calcium hydroxide, I use it on the trees and mix it with copper sulphate for the vineyard, it kind of works suppressing the bugs on the trees,

That sounds similar to Bordeaux mixture to me. Measure out 6 ½ teaspoons of copper sulphate and 3 tablespoons of hydrated lime. The lime should be mixed with a pint of water to make a “milk of lime” suspension

[merlin]

that's the one, comes out light blue, use it for most things here.

[gray_bale]

I always make my own Bordeaux mixture up. As a proprietary bought pre mixed tin costs a lot. Whereas the chemicals that go into it are so cheap.