Eating cherries, you can often find wormy berries. Some, at the sight of a worm, take it out and eat the cherries further, but a squeamish person almost always throws out wormy berries. Where can worms appear in cherries and is it dangerous to eat damaged berries?

Signs of worms affecting cherries

Where worms come from in cherries, this question is quite popular during the harvest season. Wormy cherries are caused by the deposition of cherry fly larvae. The small insect feasts on the sweet secretion of the cherry aphid that infects young shoots of the fruit tree. As soon as the fly is saturated, it makes a puncture in the berry and leaves its eggs in it. As a result, the berry begins to rot and falls off long before it is fully ripe. The rotting berry becomes attractive to a large number of flies. They are the carriers of many infectious ailments and are dangerous to the human body.

Important! Themselves white worms in cherries, the larvae do not harm the human body. However, it is they who create favorable conditions for the reproduction of flies, which pose a threat to the body. To protect yourself, you need to remove the worms from the cherries and pour boiling water over the berries. Only then can they be consumed.

Worms in cherry

Worm cherries: what to do

How to deal with wormy cherries? With a high degree of pest infestation, there is an urgent need to spray fruit trees with insecticides. For high efficiency of measures, at least 2 treatments will be required according to the recommendations of specialists:

  • It is advisable to carry out the first stage of processing before the mass emergence of cherry flies begins. As a rule, this happens when the air temperature does not drop below 18-19 ° C. The flowering of acacia can also notify about the beginning of the emergence of flies. During this period, it is extremely important to spray the soil from which the insects emerge. You can also use yellow glue traps, which will need to be spread evenly over the trees. For their manufacture, bright yellow sheets of paper are glued onto cardboard sheets. On top of the sheets, yellow ALT glue is applied, which is actively used in hunting belts. At the moment when more than 15 flies will gather on the traps, we can talk about a massive outflow of insects. In order not to use chemistry, traps can be made with sweet liquid.
  • The second stage should be carried out 14 days after the previous one, but no later than 15 days before the start of berry picking. For processing cherries, insecticides such as karate, aktara, lightning and spark are perfect. It is advisable to change the preparations every year in order to avoid the addiction of insects to the composition of the product. And after harvesting, it is important to thoroughly wash the berries from the tree that has been processed.
  • During the treatment of tree crowns, the soil around the tree trunk should also be sprayed to get rid of the pupae of pests located in the soil.
  • If you wish, you can use folk remedies. After the tree has faded, you need to take a little kvass or compote and pour it into cut plastic bottles. Hang the containers on fruit trees. Each tree will require 5 of these bottles. As soon as the liquid begins to ferment, the scent will attract harmful insects, and they will flock to the source of the smell. Periodically, you should get rid of trapped flies and add fresh liquid to the container.
  • It is important to pick the fruit quickly.In a phased manner, cherry flies manage to damage the remaining uninfected berries.
  • Having completely harvested the crop, you need to remove the carrion that accumulates under the trees. It is recommended to take it away from the garden area. This will prevent new larvae from entering the ground where they can pupate.
  • It is important to destroy cherry aphids so that they do not attract cherry flies with their sweetish secretions. You also need to remove the garden ants. Under the cherries, it is worth planting such plants from which the pest wants to get away. Marigolds and marigolds have similar properties. Also, a decoction of wormwood and tobacco leaves will help to cope with aphids. After boiling for 5 minutes, you need to add a few drops of liquid soap to improve adhesion to foliage and create an airtight film that does not allow aphids to breathe.

Important! It is necessary to try to remove cherry flies from the site in the spring. How to drive out insects is decided by each gardener individually.

Cherry care in spring

Worm cherries often spoil the mood of summer residents who have been waiting for the ripeness of their favorite berries for so long. So that adult flies do not have time to hatch out of pupae that hibernate in the ground, in early spring, dig up the ground under the cherries or run chickens on the garden plot, which will quickly select them. After digging, it is important to level the soil using a rake. After that, cover the soil with a black film. This will prevent the hatched fly from flying out into the wild. During the beginning of a mass gathering of flies, it is recommended to process trees:

  • actar;
  • sherpa;
  • decis;
  • arriv;
  • match.

Processing wood from flies

It is not necessary to process early-ripening varieties of cherries with the listed means, since it is possible to remove the fruits after processing with these preparations only after 20 days. Also in early April, before the first foliage appears, you need to carry out:

  • Copper sulfate treatment. To do this, mix 10 liters of water and 125 ml of copper sulfate. Spring is the best time to spray the tree with this preparation.
  • Processing with Bordeaux liquid. To do this, mix 125 ml of copper sulfate with 10 liters of hot water. Quicklime is diluted separately with water. Next, you need to mix both solutions and spray the trees with the resulting composition.
  • If desired, you can spray the trees with copper oxychloride. It is necessary to dissolve 40 g of the chemical in 10 liters of water. Cherry should be processed during the period when buds appear on the branches.

Spring processing and further care is a very important step in the care of fruit trees.

How to clean cherries from worms

How to get rid of worms in cherries so that they are ready to eat? When a large number of worms are noted in the harvested crop, it becomes necessary to somehow get rid of them. What can happen if you accidentally eat berries with worms? For example, a person simply forgot to take out the worm. With a long period of life of the white worm inside the cherry, the risk of poisoning increases, since the pulp begins to rot. When the cherries rot, there is an unpleasant bitterness in the mouth.

Are worms in cherries dangerous for people or is it a myth? If the worm has only recently settled in the pulp, then such food will not cause any harm to health. The only unpleasant problem will be the psychological dislike of what is happening. Who will enjoy the use of berries along with worms? However, in this situation, it is worth turning off the fantasy. A worm is not a worm, and it is not dangerous!

To remove worms from cherries, it must be soaked in salt water

To remove worms from cherries, you can use the old time-tested method. To do this, you need to insist the berries in water. You can use ordinary running water at room temperature, or you can add some salt to the same water. To save the harvest (1.5 kg), you will need to prepare:

  • 3 liters of water;
  • 1 tbsp. tablespoons of table salt (with a slide);
  • a large saucepan;
  • colander.

How to remove worms from cherries in this way in stages:

  1. The first step is to sort out the berries collected in the garden.Foliage, branches, tails and rotten fruits, in which worms have long begun to grow, should be completely removed. This will allow the salty liquid to enter the cherry core through the holes to which the tails are attached.
  2. It is very important that the temperature of the liquid is close to room temperature. After dissolving the salt in water, you need to mix it thoroughly to avoid sedimentation of crystals at the bottom.
  3. After dipping cherries into the water, you need to add water until it completely covers the berries. After 30 minutes, you can see the worms that surfaced. After placing the berries in a colander, rinse them under running water. Now you can eat sweet cherries as raw, make jam and sweet cherry compote from it.

How else to remove worms from cherries? Unfortunately, until now this is the only method by which you can get rid of pests and not spoil the outer shell of cherries. However, following the advice of experts, you can process trees in a timely manner and prevent the appearance of insects, which cause the appearance of larvae and white worms. Worms in cherries should not spoil the harvest!