You have already planned the blackberries in your hedge for summer sweets and jam and then this: small, white maggots have beaten you to it! The culprits are probably raspberry beetles or the spotted drosophila, which has not been around for a long time.
Maggots in blackberries often come from the raspberry beetle
Larvae also love blackberries
Some insects prefer to lay their eggs in berries, where their larvae can comfortably feed and develop after hatching. Pests that target blackberries, among others, are:
- the raspberry beetle and
- the cherry vinegar fly
raspberry beetle
The raspberry beetle favors raspberries for its larvae, but it is also very fond of blackberries. Its cream-colored larvae are also called raspberry worms or raspberry maggots, although they are not maggots. If you take a closer look, you can see that from the 3 pairs of breastbones. They eat the fruit from the inside, resulting in an outwardly damaged, stunted, and misshapen berry.
countermeasures
It is worth paying attention to the raspberry beetle. You should keep checking your blackberry bushes for the light brown beetles during the flight and oviposition period from mid-May and collect them manually
Traps with an attractant dispenser can also contain the infestation relatively effectively.
cherry vinegar fly
The spotted drosophila is a pest immigrant from Far Asia and has only been around in Germany since around 2011. The light reddish-brownish fly is a major burden, especially for fruit growers. Their white larvae (in this case they are actually maggots) eat away large amounts of the fruit from the inside, causing external decay and soft spots.
countermeasures
If the infestation already exists, it only helps to remove the affected fruit as thoroughly as possible and dispose of it in the organic waste (not on the compost!) to contain a next year's population.
Otherwise, early prevention is the order of the day. For example, you can make your own traps by filling plastic bottles or cans half-half full with water and vinegar and a squirt of dish soap and hanging them in the bushes during the flies' flight and egg-laying season.
The timely stretching of insect protection nets over the bushes promises effective help. The flies cannot penetrate through their close-meshed tissue and consequently cannot lay eggs on the fruit.