Pests & diseases › Pepper Maggots

Pepper Maggots

Yellow fly larvae tunneling inside pepper, eggplant and tomato fruit.

Symptoms

  • Small entry holes on pepper fruit
  • Internal tunneling and premature ripening
  • Soft rot setting in
  • Maggots found when fruit cut open

Lifecycle

Adults emerge mid-summer, lay eggs in young fruit.

What to do

  • Bag and bin affected fruit
  • Spinosad on young fruit

If it's bad

  • Pyrethrin during egg-laying window

Stop it coming back

  • Floating row cover until flowering
  • Pick fruit promptly
  • Clean up dropped fruit

Crops it goes for

Plan the plot, track every sowing, cook the harvest

Sowing reminders and harvest forecasts for your own frost dates, the Seed Tin, Scan Centre for any label or packet, and the Potty Mouth Garden Club. Free to start.