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Eating bright red sweet cherries fresh from the tree can be a real treat. However, it is not uncommon for sweet cherries to contain an undesirable “meat insert”. In other words: many cherries are infested by cherry fruit flies or their maggots. Although you will hardly suffer any harm if you eat a few of these larvae, it is very appetizing for very few people.
larvae
Under what circumstances are there particularly many larvae?
For the amount of larvae present, on the one hand, that weather responsible, but also the chosen one cherry variety. In warm, dry summers, there are particularly large numbers of fly maggots, but the little creatures don’t like damp and cool weather as much. So rain and cold during the oviposition period are useful to keep the population down.
freshly picked cherries
They hatch around the end of May cherry fruit flies. About 14 days later they start laying eggs. They choose unripe, yellow to light red fruits for this. Early cherry varieties, which are at a different stage of ripeness at this time, are therefore spared the maggot. In the other fruits, the eggs mature, from which the larvae hatch a little later.
remove maggots
How do I get the maggots out of the fruit?
The only way to find out if your cherries are really infested with larvae is to look. You can cut open the cherry and then remove the maggot right away. However, this is a lot of work and reduces the enjoyment of the sweet fruit considerably. But at least you don't have to eat the maggot with it.
Remove maggot from a cherry
water bath
Instead, place your freshly picked cherries in a cool water bath. After about ten minutes, the fruit will begin to soak up water. Since this is unpleasant for the maggots, the animals leave the affected fruit and swim on the water. It's not a pretty sight, but you can simply skim off the larvae from the surface of the water and dispose of them in the compost bin. Unfortunately, this method is not 100 percent successful. Some particularly stubborn larvae will likely remain in the cherries.
combat
Can I keep cherry fruit fly maggots off my cherry trees?
Chemicals used to control cherry fruit flies are not permitted in private gardens. So you have to resort to other means. For a successful fight against the cherry fruit fly, you need to know how their life and development cycle works. The larvae hatch about five to twelve days after the eggs are laid and eat the pulp. After about 30 days, the larvae leave the mostly rotten fruits and bury themselves in the ground to overwinter. This cycle needs to be broken.
Prunus avium, wild cherry, sweet cherry
Effective means to combat the cherry fruit fly:
- plant early cherry varieties
- Keep chickens under the trees
- Pull protective nets over the trees
- Prevent pupation in the soil
yellow boards
Yellow panels attract the cherry fruit fly, which then sticks to the panels. However, these panels are only really effective with a very small stock of cherry trees. In the case of large trees and stocks, they only serve as indicators of an infestation.
Chicken
Chickens are used to control the cherry fruit fly in several ways. On the one hand, they scratch and peck the larvae and pupae out of the ground so that no more flies can hatch from them. Later in the year they eat the falling cherries and the maggots inside.
keeping chickens in the garden
fleece or foil
You can also prevent the larvae from crawling into the ground and pupating there with a fleece or foil under the cherry tree. To do this, however, you must collect or sweep away and destroy falling fruits and larvae every day. However, the ground around the corresponding cherry tree must already be covered in May. Only after the very last fruits have been harvested can you remove the fleece or film.