Green Harvest - Fruitspotting Bug Introduction

FRUITSPOTTING BUG

This pest is a native sap-sucker and often attacks orchard trees close to bushland.

Suggested Organic Strategies:

Careful re-design is needed to increase diversity, often there is a lack of understorey in the nearby bush, which would normally be a habitat for natural predators of the bug. A thick planting of native shrubs between the bush and the orchard, or around the orchard boundary will create niches for longer-lived predators of bugs such as birds, spiders, assassin bugs, tachinid flies, chalcid wasps and ground beetles. The shrubs also act as a physical barrier to flying insects.
Cover cropped orchards support more soil dwelling predators and generally have a lower number of pests than bare or grassed orchards.
Improve the habitat for birds by providing safe nest sites, food and water.
Poultry may also help, so keep either chooks, guinea fowl or ducks as they all eat large numbers of insects. Guinea fowl are a lot more feral than chooks, roost in trees at night and may be better at catching flying insects like the Fruitspotting bug.
Small ponds encourage useful predators of insects such as frogs and dragonflies, which need water to breed.
To encourage beneficial insects, it is important to avoid the use of pesticides wherever possible.

Suggested Products:

Pyrethrum

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