Narcissus fly
Jane McGary (Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:38:03 PDT)

Mary SUe wrote, Does anyone know

As far as I can see, it isn't. I have a large number of genera and families
represented in my collection, and I have found bulb fly larvae only in
Narcissus, Galanthus, and Sternbergia. I now cover all the sternbergias and
galanthus with screens or Reemay before the flies emerge but the narcissus
are so scattered around and so many of them that I haven't grouped and
covered them yet. I squeeze the bulbs hard when I lift them to test whether
they have grubs -- the species I grow in the frames are all quite small so
this is effective though very disgusting.

This year spring was very cold for a long time, and the flies did not
emerge until about a month later than I have seen them before; they must
emerge in response to soil temperature (the larvae pupate in the soil, not
inside the bulbs)? Anyway, so far I have found very few infested narcissus
bulbs, and no pot with more than one bad one.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA