The Pest Advice

Stop clusters of flies forming

The cluster flies that have plagued many a rural home and farm in New Zealand over recent years are a very seasonal pest. When cool weather firsts strikes the flies seek shelter in dark and dry corners of buildings. The pheromone (smell) that each fly releases when a it finds a good place to hide for the winter attracts other cluster flies. As more flies join the cluster the pheromone strength builds until all the flies in the area are clustered together in the same roof void, or other place in homes and farm buildings. A home can be infested with thousands of these slow moving smelly flies.

Grass grub

Gras grub and porina caterpillar are soil pests that eat the roots and bases of grasses in lawns and pasture. Grass grub are the larvae of bronze beetle and porina caterpillars the larvae of the porina moth. Grass grub eat the roots of grass deep in the soil and porina live in the soil and emerge to eat the crowns of grass.

Porina caterpillar

Passion Vine Hopper nymphs

Have you seen small fluffy tailed insects on the shoots of your citrus trees, jasmine, wisteria, hydrangea, privet or other ornamentals? They may be the nymphs of the passion vine hopper. These little insects suck the sap of many garden plants and can cause distorted leaves and shoots and their honeydew waste products will encourage sooty moulds.

A similar insect is the nymph of the green plant hopper, however the nymphs of the green plant hopper keep their fluffy tails straight back rather than up in the air as the passion vine hopper does. The green plant hopper nymph body is pale green rather than the passion vine hopper white.

The older nymphs will hop and try and fly when disturbed. Their adult form lacks the fluffy white tail and is a small brown moth like insect with functional wings. The adults form from January – April. they also suck sap and lay eggs that overwinter on the underside of leaves.

Control of these insects is best achieved in the nymphal stage November-March. Spray with systemic insecticide and fungicide or with spraying oil.

More information on passion vine hoppers and how to get rid of them. http://www.kiwicare.co.nz/garden/pests/q-z/vine-hopper/

Why did the gardener need a puncture repair kit?
Because his garden had sprung a leek.

The citrus whitefly came to New Zealand from Australia in around 1995 and because it has few predators in NZ it has become common, particularly in the North Island. It is a small sap sucking insect which like other aphids and whitefly produces a sweet honeydew waste product from its rear. Sooty mould grows on the surfaces of leaves covered in the sticky honeydew.

The combination of whitefly sucking sap from the plant, spreading other disease and the loss of photosynthesis due to the covering of sooty mould can be very damaging to the health of the tree and the yield of fruit.

So if you see your citrus tree looking sooty it may not be enough to treat it with a fungicide alone.

Control of these whitefly is achieved with the use of spraying with mineral oil such as Kiwicare Organic Super Spraying Oil. The oil should be applied directly onto the insects as it works by suffocating them. It can be used in conjunction with copper spray such as Organic Copper Oxy to control the sooty mould.

A woman goes for a job picking citrus. The farmer is surprised at the woman’s CV.
“You seem a bit over qualified” He says “I see you have a PhD! Have you ever picked lemons before?”
“Yes” She replies. “I’ve had three husbands and I bought a BMW last year.”

If your pets had fleas before you left, their fleas will have been left behind in the house. It is a popular misconception that fleas live on their animals. In fact fleas live in pet bedding and carpet and furniture around the home. They hop onto their animals for a feed and then hop off again. The adults will lay eggs on the animals but these fall off soon after. Larvae that emerge from the eggs feed exclusively on dust and detritus in carpets and bedding and don’t bite or feed on the animals or people directly.

While people and pets are away from the house the flea larvae will pupate. The pupae may hatch and adult fleas emerge hungry and seeking a blood feed. Even those flea pupa that do not hatch will be waiting to hatch and pounce on the returning holidaymakers and their pets. The fleas emerge rapidly on sensing vibrations and heat from potential blood feeds.

So take care when you and your pets return home. You may need to tuck your trousers in your socks as I used to do when carrying out professional flea treatments. I would even spray the socks and trousers with a little permethrin to try and stop the fleas biting me through the clothes.

To treat your home and get rid of the fleas you will find useful information and advice here.

An alternative, and perhaps cruel, method of dealing with a ravenous flea ambush as recommended by some is to treat your pets with a flea drops and send them into the home first. The fleas then hop on to the pets, take a feed and seal their doom. It is then safe for the people to enter. I am not sure the pets would approve of this method, but it does work.

What is the difference between someone waiting to go on holiday and a someone returning home to a flea ridden house?
One’s itching to go and the other’s going to itch.

New Zealand’s North Island and Upper South Island suffered one the wettest Decembers on record in 2011. January has begun in a similar fashion and the weather pattern is set to continue for the first two of weeks of 2012 at least. The wet weather has influenced the levels of many pests and diseases in homes and gardens.
Common insect pests such as cockroaches thrive in moist humid conditions. They normally have to hide in cracks and crevices to keep from drying out during hot dry summers, but with the recent wet conditions they are able to travel from building to building more easily. It is likely that people will encounter many new cockroach infestations this summer.

Wood boring insects such as the common borer (bora), two tooth longhorn and others like their wood with a little moisture; ‘to aid digestion.’

The North Island and Upper South Island of New Zealand have experienced one of the wettest Decembers on record and the damp conditions are set to continue for another week or two at least. This is the middle of the borer flight season and it is the time that people notice extra little holes in their weatherboards, floorboards, skirting, architraves, furniture and other wood around the home.

You may not be aware the extra activity in the borer world but the woodworm (borer larvae) will be taking advantage of the conditions to chew through more of your home and furniture. Then they pupate near the surface before emerging as adult beetles. As can be seen from the profile of the floorboard above the majority of damage and flight holes are on the underside, so that the adult borer emerge into the dark damp sub-floor areas. Damage to the observable surfaces of such timbers are a small fraction of the damage within.

The adults fly to find a mate and then the female seeks out some bare wood, preferably wood with a little moisture (sub-floor, old flight holes, eaves, etc.), to lay her eggs and start the whole life cycle over again.

Now is the best time to inject flight holes with borer injector fluid and the paint or spray bare timbers. if there are timbers such as the sud-floor that cannot be reached, bomb the adult borer with borer bombs.

What did the borer larvae say when he walked into the bar?
“Is the bar tender here?”

Gammarus flea like crustaceans

I have had several enquiries recently from people experiencing an influx of a ‘mysterious’ orange brown flea shaped creatures. They have been found in garages and homes in large numbers. All the calls have originated in the North Island of New Zealand.

These creatures are gammarus which are not insects but are shrimp like crustaceans. There are more than 200 species of Gammarus worldwide and several in NZ. They are much larger than fleas but have a similar body shape, being flattened from the sides. They also have long legs and can hop in a similar way to fleas. In many parts of the world Gammarus are known as sand hoppers. Their normal habitats would be sea beaches, near rivers and lakes and below rocks and leaf litter in gardens. They need moist conditions and die quickly if exposed so they are usually under rocks or other cover.

Gammarus do not bite and are not normally a pest but the recent warm and moist weather in the North Island of New Zealand has encouraged numbers to boom. As they spread and try to find new places to live many people have experienced them moving indoors. Gammarus will die quickly in the dry indoor conditions and most callers have described finding many dead.

Ring type treatments with spray insecticide and/or soil insecticide granules will reduce numbers and reduce the likelihood of them infesting a home but they are only an occasional pest and do not cause any harm.

What do you call a happy sand hopper?
A hoptomist.