You can reduce the number of worms in cherries. There are few ways to do it

Did you know in what fruit we almost always eat worms and it even seems normal? If you answered cherries, your answer is correct. That is just the way it is. However, if you try to can cherries to preserve them and you see many white caterpillars swimming in your glass, it is not normal or desirable. Suddenly, you do not feel like eating cherries so much, even though you know that these ugly worms are out of your fruit now. Why there is such a large number of worms in your cherries? The answer is because of a bug called cherry fruit fly or in Latin (Rhagoletis cerasi). In this article we shall focus on this bug and how to eliminate it as much as possible.

Glue boards as an indicator

You need to spray chemical on your cherry trees when cherry fruit flies land on the tree. Well, but how can you possibly know? Certainly, these flies are not sitting on the tree all the time! The best way is to buy classic glue boards and they will stick to it. This will allow you to reduce the number of cherry flies to some extent, but unfortunately, the number of warms in your cherries will decrease only little, so you are back to spraying your trees as it is often needed to eliminate warms.

Photo: Pixabay

Natural way to reduce the number of warms

There is a natural reduction method to help you out, but it is not guaranteed. It mainly includes proper caring for your trees and its immediate surroundings. The larvae of this bug will have harder time to develop properly if you plough the area around the tree bit by bit. They also hate quicklime, which you can use to cover the area around your tree. For example, hens love worms so it pays to let them roam freely around your trees Be sure to remove all remaining fruits, even those that you will not eat. Fruits remaining on the tree must be removed and destroyed.

Try to grow early varieties

A rather well-known advice says that it pays to grow early cherry varieties. Early fruits have better chance to avoid air raids of this bug, but if you already have warms in cherries place them in salt water before canning. Worms will leave their cherry houses within few hours and you will be able to can them without the unwanted protein.

Photo: Pixabay