Narcissus Bulb Fly - Merodon

Roy Herold rherold@yahoo.com
Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:50:22 PDT
Jim,

The biggest problem I have with narcissus fly is on/in cyrtanthus. I lost the majority of bulbs in several pots this summer after I decided to give them a break from the greenhouse and put them outside. The results were, to say the least, disgusting. I took to pulling the grubs from the bulbs with tweezers, and found they had excavated quite sizable cavities. I wound up throwing the majority of the damaged bulbs onto the compost pile, where they proceeded to generate rings of little bulblets around the basal plate. One had a bulblet inside the cavity. A new propagation technique?

This wasn't the first time they got into the cyrtanthus--it seems to happen every other time that I put them outside, but not always. As for narcissus, they probably get into these from time to time, but I don't dig the bulbs that often to check. I've never seen them in pot grown bulbocodium types, perhaps because they go dormant earlier. As Mark mentioned, a grower in western Massachusetts has an ongoing problem, but that doesn't stop him from sending wonderful narcissus bulbs.

I'm wondering if there is a magic date after which the flies stop laying eggs, and the amaryllids can safely be brought outside to enjoy the summer weather. Ideas?

--Roy
NW of Boston, down to 29F,  but no real frost/freeze yet







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