Whenever a jujube fruit start to shade a little red this shows up. I’m guessing ants and ant eggs?
What do I do? I’d like to eat at least a couple a yr.
Set borax out? Spray? If so then what?
Thanks!
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Has it rained recently and caused some of the fruits to crack? It might be hornets/wasps eating the cracked fruit
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Weather cracked or bird damage is very likely. But, even if that’s happening I’d like to save a nibble or two for myself from the bugs.
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It looks ripe enough to eat already.
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They seem to go from green to red and covered with eggs (or whatever that is) overnight. I’ve grabbed a couple and cut them apart. There’s nothing good in them.
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The stuff on them is probably just frass.
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Where are you located? At least tell us your state. Some pests are local. Knowing where you are may help narrow it down.
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To me, it looks like ants are what is the problem.
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Don’t know what that is. Maybe @BobVance knows.
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My bad!
South Central Kansas. Cowley County to be pretty specific.
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While the first picture shows an ant, I am inclined to think it may have been attracted by the aftermath of what did the damage (the frass all over the fruit).
While there are literally thousands of species of ants and they behave differently, at least the ones around here don’t lay eggs out in the open (I agree that is likely frass and not eggs in the picture though), but the also don’t tend to tunnel into fruit and back out the other side like it appears here. They tend to excavate their food more methodically and I’m not used to seeing ants leave much frass: usually the ones I see will take whatever Edible things they find, cut it into small pieces, and carry those back to their colony; not leave it scattered about at the place they found the food.
My (very unknowlwdgeable guess) would be some other insect (if it happens overnight I would look at what nocturnal beetles/etc are in the area) does the initial damage and then the ants find the highly sweet debris the next day and start in to clean up the scraps for themselves.
Some fruit turn colors if the fruit is damaged: are any of the ones just starting to turn showing any scars of damage? Could it be an insect laying an egg on the fruit that eventually turns into a grub that eats its way out instead of into the fruit which is why you only see this with fruit that are shifing in colors?
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Would you like to contact Kansas State extension services to see if they could identify the issue you have?
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To me the frass that looks like that and the tunneling both scream ants to me (I forgot about the first picture with the ant, the holes made me think ants). They’ll do that to apples here.
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Those holes going all the way through sound like a fruit fly situation rather than surface pests. Once they’re boring into the flesh like that there’s not much saving that batch but it might be worth bagging a few of the green ones early next year before they start to colour up, gives at least some chance of getting a taste.
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I’ve never seen that on my jujubes (and hope to never see it…).
I asked AI and it thought that plum curculio or codling moth could cross over if there was a high enough local pop and enough pressure. Is that something you have? Did you ever find anything in the fruit? If not, maybe cut one of the less damaged ones and see if there is anything in there.
AI said:
Cut one of the affected jujubes completely in half. If you see a legless white grub with a brown head, it is a plum curculio. If you see a caterpillar with tiny legs, it is a codling moth.
It could also be caused by fruit flies or beetles. There are ones dedicated to jujubes in Asia, but they aren’t believed to exist in the US. It’s possible that some other beetle or fruit fly decided to give jujubes a try and likes what it found…
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A couple of green ones from my Li (I think that’s what it is), and the Tigertooth. Found an ant on my truck seat after throwing the fruit on it, then found another inside a fruit. I don’t know if they are THE PROBLEM, but I’d think they are A problem.
Anyone recognize the little buggers? Have a way to keep them out of my jujubes? I think I’ve always had them but never investigated much because the trees produced so little fruit I never had the expectations of getting any. Now that they are putting out heavier crops I’d like to eat a few.
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