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Cherry Tree Diseases

Sylvia CallinanSylvia Callinan Posts: 3
in Fruit & veg
Can anyone tell me what to do with my enormous infested cherry tree which has been attacked by a fruit fly and all the cherries have tiny white maggots in them. Many thanks

Posts

  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    All you can really do is try and reduce numbers by clearing up any fallen fruit immediately.  Raking up debris and mulching the ground under the tree with well rotted manure or home-made compost after all of the leaves have fallen in autumn may help, but drosophila numbers can build-up quickly.  The adults can overwinter in a sort of stasis and may hide in the fallen leaves under the tree, so clearing and gently cultivating the soil beneath the canopy before mulching it would be the first thing I would try.  Attracting insect-eating birds like tits, wrens & robins will also help, so you could also try hanging a feeder in the tree.
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • Sylvia CallinanSylvia Callinan Posts: 3
    Thank you Bob. We are in the process of collecting and disposing of all the fruit and because we have lots of fruit trees, apples, plums, quince, pears and bushes with blueberries, we don't know whether they will be affected or not. We have a gourmet garden for birds, so hopefully your info will help there. We will, as you advised with the lawn under the tree, mulch tomorrow. Its taking a while as we are both in our mid-70s and so far have taken about 30lbs of cherries off the tree but just hope that it doesn't come back next year as we would then have to cut the tree down which would be awful. Its about 20ft high and a nice feature.  Again, thanks Bob.
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