Dave Jones and Larry Gut of MSU have been studying whether spotted wing Drosophila (SWD) can infest processing peach.
They measured adult SWD emergence after harvest in all major processing peach cultivars from the west central region. The cultivars Vinegold, Virgil, Venture, Caterina, Arkansas 9, Johnboy, Babygold5 and Redhaven were all sampled at peak field maturity.
They determined that while it is possible for SWD to infest peaches with physical damage (suture cracking, split pit, bird pecks, etc.), field infestations in non-damaged fruits were so rare in our trials that they consider them insignificant. Peaches that are harvested at the typical firm, early maturity stages should not be an issue for most growers.
Click here to read the entire article.
We are doing some similar testing of tender fruit at different stages of ripeness to determine whether SWD can infest them and if so, at what stage. Stay tuned.
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