Eventful Day

Today started like any normal day, the sun was peeping through the clouds and fog. I figured the weather was done and the drama was over. Oh how wrong I was.

These two photos are from Saturday morning.

These photos are from this morning.

Our waist high letterbox is underwater roughly in the middle of this photo.

This is the tree that decided to fall down, just missing the house, swing set and cars parked out the front. One car which had just been unbogged from the driveway. Not our car. Needed a tractor to get this one out. We have a lot of holes to fill in once we dry out.

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Fly Predators

I realize that on this blog we are mostly sharing the enthusiasm and fervor we feel about farming and living a natural lifestyle.  Well of course that makes sense, since we want you to be inspired and excited with us.  The reality is, however, like anything else in life, there is a down side.  And for me right now, superficial as it is, that dark side is the army of flies we have breeding and hovering on our property.  I suppose it can not be helped.  We try to clean the goat stalls regularly, compost all the manure and keep things moving around here.  But I am learning it is just a law of nature that with livestock, manure and warm weather come flies, lots of them.  We tried sticky fly paper as our initial method of eradication.  Strands and strands of it hang from the barn ceiling and in front of our porch, (the worst two areas because of the shade).  Not a very zen approach I know, the flies get stuck in the paper but soon the papers are full and the flies keep on coming.  

Second approach...the wand zapper.  Its really terrible, like a big tennis racket for electrocuting flies.  

Our third approach the liquid fly bait, which smells like death, is not really what you want hanging on your front porch.  It is supposed to trap up to 20,000 flies but after almost a month now it has trapped a grand total of...one fly.  

The fourth approach arrived in the mail this week.  5,000 fly predators from Spalding Labs.  I must say I have very high hopes for this one, it makes sense and seems holistic/sustainable.  I am supposed to wait for a dozen of the 5,000 to hatch inside the package then release them around the most problem areas on our property.  The nocturnal fly predators proceed to eat the fly larvae nipping the problem in the bud.  The Spalding Lab people are very friendly and after asking you how much land you have, how many animals, and your zip code, they quickly configure how many fly predators you need for your individual situation and for how many months you need to order.  

I will receive a shipment of 5,000 once a month for five months.  Tomorrow is the day to release them, I can see a bunch of them wiggling around in the package.  Ill let you know if it works in a month or so.  

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Fruit Fly

When we moved here we have no idea how incredibly infested this farm infact the whole town is with fruit fly. The numbers here are unbelievable. It is heart breaking throwing out more than half the fruit due to infestation. I hate it, I really really hate it. We moved in during peak fruit and therefore peak fruit fly season. It was too late to do anything so it all went to the bin.

This year we knew we have to do something. Having a handful of different types of trees makes commercial sprays tricky as different trees need different poison. We are also not particularly keen on using those chemicals on our farm. The alternative, organic sprays, baits, traps and bags. We researched, we read, we discussed and came up with our action plan.

Eco-Naturelure
This needs to be applied weekly, and reapplied again if it rains. It attracts both male and female fruit flies and poisons them. It is sprayed on the trunks of the trees. We instead decided to sray it into cups hanging in the trees so rain would not wash it away and apply twice a week.



Verdict: Trees with two cups hanging were completely lost to the fruit fly every single fruit gone. Are these cups the cause? are they attracting the fly to the tree but not to the cup? Is the poison too dry to kill them instead the just act as a lure? Next year I plan on putting some disks of felt into the cups so the lure can be soaked in and dried out slower.

Fruit Fly traps
These are designed to attract the males and kill them in trap. It is suppose to help give and indication of how infested you are with fruit fly.



Verdict: Very very few flies in these traps but very large numbers of fly maggots in the fruit. Are they worth the money I do not know.

Exlcusion Bags
Place them over the fruit tie them off and keep the nasty little critters out.



Verdict: They work wonderfully. The fruit is free from the fruit fly maggots. Keeps most of the fruit safe from birds and fruit bats.

But can I bag an entire Quince tree? Can I bag our entire 200+ tree orchard. Likely not



Chooks and Ducks
Fruit fly pupates in the soil, once they hatch it takes 24hrs for their wings to be dry enough to fly. Having chooks and ducks free ranging under the trees should mean a significant amount of fruit fly eaten.

Verdict: We have a couple of acres for them to roam, 200+ trees and not enough poultry to make a great deal of impact. We are sure they helped to what degree is particularly hard to assess.

Where to from here? Have a bit of a cry, a little more of a cry then try and come up with a new plan. Do we use commercial sprays next year? Maybe. Will the fly just be blown in from elsewhere? Most likely. Will we ever beat the fruit fly?

Do we pack up and move? Yes. But we cannot, we cannot afford to move only 12months after moving in and Damo having not had a full time job for almost 3 years. This move has turned out to be one giant massive expensive mistake for many many reasons, the fruit fly being just one. For now we must knuckle down, bear with it, and turn this farm into the most productive farm we can, try and make improvements where we can so when we sell the place will sell quickly.

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