Gardening and Horticulture - What is laying egss in my blueberries?

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Camtyken
06-01-08, 06:31 AM
We have two blueberry bushes that my kids enjoy eating the fruit off of every year. This year there are several berries with a perfect round hole bored into them and are full of small yellowish round egg clusters. Anyone have any idea what that is?

Newt
06-04-08, 12:13 AM
The blueberry maggot comes to mind, but the time of the year is wrong. Are your bushes in berry already and the eggs are in the green berry stage or was this last year?
http://pmo.umext.maine.edu/bluberry/BlueMaggot.htm

Are the insects laying eggs in the green berries or once they have begun to turn blue?

What state do you live in?

Newt
Camtyken
06-04-08, 10:26 AM
blueberries are green right now and after doing some research I believe it is some sort of worm or catepillar.

twelvepole
06-04-08, 04:05 PM
My guess would be blueberry maggot, too, but maggot flies are supposed to lay a single egg in a berry. See blueberry pest info here: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/IG070

My mountain neighbor grows high bush blueberries. Every year she covers them with a fine white mesh netting that looks like sheer curtains from a distance. I assume this protects berries from both bird and insect pests.