Black Fig Fly found in California

General Fruit Growing
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The CA folks on Ourfigs.com discovered this year that the BFF has made its way into the US (California).

Apparently, it’s a fly look-alike, that deposits larva in the eye of the unripe fig. The larvae eats its way through the fig and pupates in the soil. The figs abort and drop.

I have a large fig collection. I am afraid to buy anything with soil that comes from CA, even non-figs, and even afraid to buy from people who buy from CA. And who knows if barerooting completely gets rid of the fly pupa.

I recently made some purchases from Edible Landscaping. Does anyone know if CA supplies their plants, or do they do their own grafts / plants? I’ll ask them tomorrow.

I would hate for this thing to spread, but it seems kind of inevitable to be honest with you guys.

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If you are worried, I’d just go ahead and ask them. If this is the nursery based in Virginia, I doubt that they’d source their fig trees from CA, shipping alone would make them very expensive.

Proper bare rooting of a tree should remove ALL soil, so the chances of a larva are greatly reduced. I would not buy or trade any potted figs coming from California. Cuttings are ok and in any case they should be cleaned with a diluted bleach solution.

I do not have BFF in my yard (yet), but the extra figs I’ve propagated for friends and family will mostly likely end up staying with me for the time being. I do not want to contribute to the spread of this pest.

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