CA gardeners with figs.....BFF?
I have four figs in my Socal yard: Janice, Peter's Honey, Black Mission, and Violette de Bordeaux. Good sized, enough to produce many dozens or a few hundred figs. Three years ago I didn't get a single fig from them because the fruit never ripened and dropped off the trees prematurely. I asked a local expert about that and he was aware of chatter about an invasion of Mediterranean Black Fig Fly (BFF) starting in 2021.
If I cut open the downed fruit, there were always brown trails or staining inside...evidence of growing larvae from the eggs the BFFs deposited.
Last year I bagged a good number of figs with organza bags, sprayed with Spinosad, and made sure I picked up unripe/infected fruits. I got some fruit, not as many as should be. BFF was still there, in force.
This year I have three McPhail fruit fly traps, bagged more figs, and have taped some of the fig ends with duct tape to prevent the BFFs from laying. I'm hopeful but on the Violette I can see that a substantial percentage of unbagged figs are infected. I remove them before they fall. Peter's Honey and Janice ( white figs) don't seem to be infected as much, yet.
I had an unorthodox idea and dabbed a bit of neosporin gel on the ends of more small developing figs to see what happens...maybe it prevents BFF egg-laying, maybe not. Maybe another type of gel would work better...but applying a gel was way quicker than the bags or tape.
This seems to be a major and developing problem. Has made its way from Socal up to the Central Valley and Bay Area this year. Anyone else doing battle? Any solutions?