Queensland fruit fly: how to spot and manage it

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Queensland fruit fly (Qfly) is one of the most serious pests for backyard fruit and fruiting veg across eastern Australia. The adult is a small, wasp-like fly, but the real damage is done by the maggots developing inside your fruit.

Also known as: Q-fly, QFF.

How do I spot it?

1. Small (about 7 mm) reddish-brown flies with clear wings around ripening fruit.
2. Tiny sting marks or dimples on the skin of the fruit.
3. Fruit rotting and dropping earlier than it should.
4. Maggots inside when you cut a suspect fruit open.

Which plants does it target?

Growing any of these? See our guides to tomatoes, capsicum & chilli, zucchini, pumpkins and eggplant.

Tomatoes, capsicum and chilli, plus most tree fruit — stone fruit, citrus, apples — and other soft fruit.

How do I manage it safely?

1. Exclusion is king — bag individual fruit, or net the whole plant, before the fruit starts to colour. Use fine insect mesh with 2 mm holes or finer, and keep it off the fruit, because Qfly can sting through a net that touches it. A Grow Frame raised garden bed (or the Grow Frame kit) holds the mesh on a timber frame, clear of the plants. Tomatoes, capsicum and eggplant still set fruit under it; zucchini and cucumbers need hand-pollinating with a small brush.
2. Be strict with hygiene: collect and destroy all fallen and stung fruit (bin it or seal it in a bag in the sun — don't compost it).
3. Hang traps early in the season, and a spinosad-based bait knocks numbers down.
4. Pick fruit slightly early where you can, and ripen it indoors.

Grow Frame: a raised garden bed built to take a net

All four legs run up to a timber top rail, 1.8 m tall delivered in South East Queensland or 1.6 m as a kit shipped Australia wide. Throw a bird net over the top, staple insect mesh to the sides or screw aviary mesh into the bays. It comes bare, so you only buy the cover your pests need.

Delivered in SEQKit, Australia wide

Qfly is a prevention-beats-cure pest — exclusion and hygiene do the heavy lifting. For the bigger picture, see our guide to managing pests and problems safely.

Plan your patch: our free garden calendar shows what to plant now where you live. Ready to grow? Browse our raised garden beds or build your own with the garden bed builder.

Image: James Niland, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.