Suppliers for SWD Monitoring Tools

This is Part 2 of 2 of our SWD monitoring tools post. See Part 1 for a summary of our project.

It is very important for growers to monitor for spotted wing drosophila (SWD) on their own farm to determine when it is necessary to begin a spray program. Once SWD is identified and ripe fruit is present it is time to spray. Monitoring will help growers confirm SWD presence before the population really builds and in time to begin an effective management program. For on-farm monitoring growers need practical, effective traps that are not time-consuming or labour-intensive.

We have been working with dry sticky traps that have the potential to provide growers with a practical, effective trapping system.

During our project last summer, we worked with yellow sticky cards, red sticky cards, liquid traps, Trécé lures, and Scentry lures. We found the combination of the yellow sticky cards with the Scentry lure to be a promising monitoring tool. We are hoping to continue to gain experience with these tools this season.

These commercial baits last for 4-6 weeks. Once SWD is identified on your farm growers should begin their spray program, and monitoring is no longer necessary.

Figure 1. Picture of a yellow sticky card with SWD males.

You can see in Figure 1. that the spots on the wings of the adult males are easily visible. A hand lens can be used to help confirm ID, however during our project we found we could find the SWD males without magnification.

If growers are interested in working with us and with these traps in 2019 contact us: Hannah Fraser (Hannah.fraser@ontario.ca) or Erica Pate (Erica.pate@ontario.ca) .

To conduct your own on-farm monitoring with lures and/or sticky cards, a partial list of suppliers of different lures and traps is below. Our project included the Scentry lure and the Trécé lure, however there are other commercial baits available, such as the Alpha Scents lure.

Alpha Scents, Inc.

West Linn, OR

Phone: 503-342-8611

Website: https://www.alphascents.com/spotted-wing-drosophila.html