May Narcissus 2012

[Lesley Cox]

Fruit flies are very fruitful.

Too true but we mustn't let them get full of fruit. Not ours anyway.

[Gerdk]

Thank you Lesley, your fruit fly is Bactrocera tryoni - I don't know whether its dangerousness is the same as the med fruit fly.

Gerd

[Kees Green]

Yes they are pheromone baited, I remember putting baits out for certain moth species with DoC probably 20+ years ago.

The queensland fruit fly in question is Bactrocera tryoni, so far no other specimens have been found and given the numbers as Anthony has said could occur this would dictate there should have been a lot more caught. We may have been extremely lucky again this time.
This is the third time that a single fruit fly of this species has been found in NZ without any colonies established, funny enough they have all been in Autumn.

[Anthony Darby]

......which might suggest Auckland really isn't a suitable environment for for a tropical fruit fly? This being said, it is spreading into more temperate parts of Australia, but summers are much hotter than here. Studies suggest they routinely disperse up to 90km as adults, which would suggest they could easily be blown across the Tasman. Adults can live up to a year, so plenty of scope for hitching a lift. It seems that when ever an isolated outbreak occurs it can be successfully eradicated. I'm impressed with the systems in place to detect this insect!

[Hoy]

A little Narcissus (and a tulip) flowering now at my summerhouse. I've forgotten which one.

[Anthony Darby]

How many summerhouses do you have?

[Hoy]

How many summerhouses do you have?

One to many maybe?

Actually I have one at the sea together with my sister and my wife has one in the mountains together with her sister Both are small cabins and not luxurious