A brand new insect has made its debut in the French vineyards. This we were told at one of our visits to Champagne a few weeks ago. This insect is called drosophila suzukii and is a fly coming from Japan. It was first seen in Switzerland and in the Rhone Valley, where it lays its eggs in cherries and raspberries, but also in grapes.
Drosophila suzukii is something that should be taken seriously. Sébastien Toselli at Champagne Roger Coulon tells us that the fly is able to penetrate the skin of healthy grapes to lay its eggs inside the grape. Normally this kind of flies can only attack grapes where the skin has already been damaged by for instance hail. The mild winter of 2014 and the wet summer have been ideal conditions for the suzukii fly to spread rapidly. Read more about the wine growers’ new tormentor: bioactualites.ch
(No, it is not Suzukii on the photo. It is a truffle fly. But it illustrates well what the wine growers would like to do with the fly.)
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This is a great concern for many wine producers,in Italy. In some region – Trentino – this insect has already done some serious damage in the vineyards, in others (Veneto) has ruined the harvest of cherries. The issue is, it has no natural enemies,because it’s not from our countries…! The bio-wine producers are really worried.
I can assure you that it is not only bio/organic producers who are worried! :-O
And this is just one of the new(ish) threats in the vineyards.