Clear sticky sheets for monitoring blueberry gall midge, Dasineura oxycoccana (Johnson), and parasitoid rearing from flower and leaf buds

Blueberry gall midge (BGM), Dasineura oxycoccana Johnson, injury can cause yield losses of up to 80% in rabbiteye blueberry plantings. Larvae develop in leaf and flower buds and pupate in the soil. Therefore, monitoring is a key part of managing this pest. Clear panel traps are an effective monitoring tool in Canada, but do not work as well in Florida. Several parasitoid species parasitize BGM larvae. A method to rear parasitoids to adulthood from leaf and flower buds would be very helpful for identification and in distribution studies. Clear sticky sheets were compared with panel traps in a RCBD with bucket emergence traps and yellow sticky cards as controls. For parasitoid rearing, leaf and flower buds were placed in three different rearing containers, which were housed in an environmental chamber for 1 to 5 weeks. There were 4 replicates of the 3 treatments. The clear sticky sheets performed as well as the panel traps with low midge populations.  Only the Petri dishes with moistened filter paper produced parasitoids after 4 and 5 weeks. None of the leaf buds produced parasitoids most likely due to fungal growth. Because of the length of time it takes for the parasitoids to develop, keeping the buds fresh and controlling fungal growth are keys to successful rearing.