What's eating my legacy blueberry?

Legacy Blueberry, a mid-to-late-season highbush with excellent fruit quality, is prized by birds, spotted wing drosophila, and blueberry tip borer. Birds are the primary cause of crop loss on unprotected bushes. Legacy's later ripening window extends exposure to spotted wing drosophila, making this pest particularly important to monitor.

Ripe berries eaten directly from clusters; bush can be stripped within a day by a group; ripening berries also pecked, causing early rot Install a purpose-built fruit cage or drape fine-mesh netting (under 25 mm) over the entire canopy before berries colour. Remove netting during flowering to allow bee access.

Larvae inside otherwise sound-looking ripe fruit; softening, leaking, and early drop; worse in warm, wet late summers Monitor with apple cider vinegar–baited traps from mid-summer. Harvest every 2–3 days. Apply approved spinosad spray during fruit development in high-pressure years. Refrigerate harvested fruit promptly to kill any eggs.

Larvae bore into shoot tips in spring, causing wilting and die-back of growing tips; secondary fungal infection in damaged stems Prune out and destroy wilted shoot tips as soon as noticed. Apply dormant oil spray in late winter to smother overwintering eggs on bark. Maintain good plant vigour to aid recovery.