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Fruit & Orchards

Pests on my baby trees?!?!?!?

17 years ago

Ok I basically have little baby fruit sticks right now so I didn't use any sprays or anything. I have these weird looking little black flies with white stripes on their abdomen. The stripes have the look of being hairy. THese guys are all of a sudden everywhere. Do y'all know what they are and if they are harmful? Then also do y'all have any recipes for natural sprays that I can make that will get rid of pests? I would like to steer as far away from harmful pesticides and such as I can. THanks a bunch!

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Comments (2)

jellyman
17 years ago
karri:

You might be able to deal with your curious black flies with an oil or soap spray, but first, a couple of questions:
What kind of fruit trees did you plant? Were they bareroot, or are they still in their orginal nursery containers?
Where are you located? I know it's zone 7, but I am in zone 7 also, and have no problems yet with any insect since temperatures have been fairly low.

Classifying all pesticides as harmful is a generalization. They can be harmful if irresponsibly of improperly used, but if targeted to specific pests or problems they can be extremely useful. Go to a nursery or the nursery section of a bigbox store to see the variety of pesticides that are sold, some "natural" and some not.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
karri25
Original Author
17 years ago
Okthey are: apple, pear, plum, peach and two hazelnuts. They ALL have these crazy little black flies on them! THe flies started on my peach tree first though. They all came bareroot. The crazy thing is these trees are just now starting to even get buds. THe only ones with leaves are the apple and the peach (two leaves only). I live in Arkansas. It's been in the low 50's to mid 70's. ARkansas weather is just like that:-) Anyhow they like to congregate on the tips of the trees and they just sit still??? I looked them up in my North American Field Guide and the only thing they resemble is a mosquito fly that is only supposed to be in the very north of Canada. I just thought maybe someone on here would know what they are. Here's to hoping!
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