With juicy crops this year, area growers take steps to prevent infestations of the cherry fruit fly.

“It’s our number one pest so far,” said Greg Norton, chairman of the Okanagan Kootenay Cherry Growers Association.

Norton said growers have several tools available to quell the spread of the flies, but the most effective over the past three years ago is a molasses-based product called GF120. He said it contains the active ingredient of spinosad.

“We squirt a little stream of this sticky stuff up into the tree. The flies are very attracted to it, they graze on it.”

Norton said the spinosad causes a reaction that kills the cherry fruit flies. He noted that GF120 is widely used throughout the Okanagan Valley, more commonly than other products like organophosphates.

Norton noted that untended backyard cherry trees pose the biggest threat to healthy orchards.

“That one tree can be the source of literally hundreds of flies.”

He pointed out the cherry fruit fly population is not on the rise, but the pest is ever present in the area.

Norton said no cherry grower can manage an orchard without control measures to keep the fruit fly population down.

While a good season for growth of cherries in the province, Norton noted that the market is depressed due to an oversupply of cheap cherries from the United States.

“There’s not a lot we can do, the government doesn’t provide any protection for cherry growers.”

Research scientist Dr. Howard Thistlewood said the cherry fruit fly appears in the form of a small white worm or larvae inside the cherry.

Thistlewood said 96 per cent of the fruit flies have a one year cycle.

He noted the flies live in the soil until early June. Thistlewood said the flies emerge at different times, mate and are ready to lay eggs in cherry trees, as well as other species of prunous plants.

He said the cherry fruit fly was not common in the area until the 1970s, when it was found to have moved onto cultivated cherries from the wild variety.

“It’s pretty easy to control, but people have to know what they’re doing.”

Thistlewood pointed out that many area residents have properties where there is a pre-existing cherry tree. He notes there are also cherry trees commonly on public property.

“They do require care and attention.”