As expected for the time of the year, caseload at the UW Insect Diagnostic Lab has been declining over the last two weeks. A summary of recent fruit crop insects reported to the UW Insect Diagnostic Lab can be found below:

Social Wasps: Yellowjackets have been very active this month and the diagnostic lab has seen lots of reports from around the state. Bald-faced hornets and paper wasps have also been quite active as well. Social wasps can be a nuisance problem and sting concern around the time of harvest but given the time of the year, colonies are beginning to decline.

Brown Marmorated Stink Bug: I continue to receive reports of the brown marmorated stink bug at the UW Insect Diagnostic Lab, primarily from southern parts of the state. Overall, reports are down compared to the last couple of years.

Identifying post-harvest insect damage: As is typical for this time of the year, the diagnostic lab has recently had many cases involving insect damage noticed at the time of fruit harvest. Damage from certain insects (such as plum curculio and codling moth) can be distinctive, but other damage can be more subtle. Washington State University has a good webpage for diagnosing postharvest insect damage on apples, which can be useful for growers in Wisconsin as well: http://tfrec.cahnrs.wsu.edu/postharvest

This article was posted in Insects and tagged Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, Insect Diagnostic Lab, insects, post-harvest insect damage, social wasps.