Bugs on Strawberries - US only

gp2.0

Tue, Mar 31 2015, 10:52 pm

After meticulously soaping, washing, rinsing, cutting off tops and visually inspecting strawberries - and then cutting off parts that are bruised or broken/healed - for years, I have yet to find a single bug. When I compare this to checking eggs, for example, I have found blood spots several times over the course of the same amount of years.

This got me thinking - how common are bugs on strawberries, really? I'm talking about strawberries grown and shipped in the US only. I've taken to inspecting the strawberries really closely before the washing routine. Nada.

Have you ever found a bug on your US grown and shipped strawberries? (And I don't mean a large bug that crawled into the box and died, I mean those tiny white ones that curl up near the seeds. And if you did find one, how hard was it to see?

Last edited by gp2.0 on Tue, Mar 31 2015, 11:07 pm; edited 1 time in total

MagentaYenta

Tue, Mar 31 2015, 11:09 pm

amother wrote:

Never either! We're you told you have to wash them with dish soap? I was at my friends house and she was rinsing them with soap. She said her Rav said it's the only way to get the bugs off.

You can put the unhusked strawberries in a bowl of water and sink them with a plate for 20 minutes, take them out and rinse with water. The black dots on the bottom of the bowl will be loose seeds, dead bugs float, if there are any.

gp2.0

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 12:03 am

cbsp wrote:

From the star K:

Yes, I've seen this...did you notice how the strawberries with bugs on them are very clearly showing other signs of damage that makes it obvious they've been chewed on? (The light brown parts where the skin was broken and healed over.)

I sometimes HAVE seen strawberries with brown parts like that, which are not necessarily caused by bugs, and I always cut off the brown parts just in case and give that strawberry an extra inspection. Still nothing.

I see someone did answer the poll that they found bugs - maybe you can elaborate in a reply? I'm curious what the surrounding circumstances are/the condition of the strawberry.

gp2.0

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 12:14 am

I have found that frozen edamame often has caterpillars inside the pods. Usually most of the bag is infested if this is the case. I check the first half of the bag carefully. If I find a caterpillar I dump the whole bag as there are sure to be more. If I don't find any after checking half the bag I check the other half faster and let my kids help as it's fun to pop them out.

I'm mentioning this because I've started wondering, why there isn't more of an outcry and banning of edamame? I know this is anecdotal, but I buy strawberries a LOT more often than edamame and found bugs in edamame a lot more often than in strawberries. I guess less people eat edamame altogether?

MagentaYenta

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 12:19 am

Those brown parts are from western flower thrips. The tiny white bug in the video is the nymph of that critter. The life cycle of these bugs is about 14 days. By the time you have found the brown spot caused by the feeding the bugs have fled. These bugs were a serious problem on the CA crops years ago, but have pretty much been eradicated in that zone. These insects thrive in warmer climates like CA but don't have much of a presence in northern climates. Integrated pest management has limited their damage on organic crops.

amother

Ginger

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 12:32 am

I have never found thrips in strawberries, but I have found small bugs that look exactly like strawberry seeds. They are usually under the leaves and float when I soak the berries.

I have never found these bugs in berries grown in the USA, but in the winter when the berries available in our local supermarkets are from South America I find quite a few. For a few months the berries are from Chile and I don't buy then because they have a lot of these bugs.

Last edited by amother on Sun, Sep 02 2018, 12:55 am; edited 1 time in total

MagentaYenta

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 12:36 am

miyodea wrote:

You wouldn't find the adult thrip on a strawberry except for when it was in blossom. The nymphs are present for a short time only but do the physical damage to the fruit.

Now I'm getting curious as to what insects come in on SA berries. TY for that info. I don't use foreign grown fruit so your info will send me off on some discovery learning.

cbsp

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 12:58 am

MagentaYenta wrote:

Thank you for your input. You've mentioned growing produce and I very much respect that ability!

Just so I'm understanding you, are you saying that it's very possible a beautiful looking strawberry could have the white bugs without any damage done to the fruit? Is it very possible that these bugs are on the fruit but we're just not seeing any?

mirror

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 1:16 am

I didn't vote because there is a difference between regular strawberries and organic strawberries.

I have never ever found a bug on regular strawberries.

I have found loads of bugs on a few boxes of organic strawberries. I don't know if it was the brand I bought or not. I highly doubt all organic strawberries are infested. But right now I am just buying non-organic strawberries and rinsing with soap to get off pesticides. (I hope the pesticides come off.)

MagentaYenta

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 1:22 am

cbsp wrote:

The nymphs are the early life stage of the thrip. The eggs are laid by the adult thrip in the blossom or the crown of the fruit. If they are laid in the blossom and hatch they will likely die due to lack of food source, unless the blossom is fertilized. If the adult thrip lays the eggs in the crown of the fruit, the brown spots will appear on the fruit since it is damaged by the sucking of the nymph. The nymph in less than two weeks (roughly the time it take for the berry to mature) will move to it's next life stage the thrip. It will no longer crawl like the nymph but will grow wings and fly off to find one of the opposite cex and begin the lifecycle all over.

Commercial strawberries are treated to a nasty soup of chemicals to decrease fruit loss. Large production processors uses a variety of washes (water) to rid the berries of dust and insects. We know that insects can become resistant to some insecticides so it is possible to get nymphs on some berries, especially those that are not graded and sorted electronically. Since these insects are not aquatic, they can drown in water. That's why I merely soak my home grown berries and do the same with my greens.

Sorry for being so pedantic.

seeker

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 1:48 am

I did not answer the poll because I have never found "small white bugs" on strawberries at all. However, I love strawberries enough that I don't get scared off by all the bug hype and I meticulously wash and check an amazing amount of strawberries. No thrips either, as far as I can recall.

I don't specifically buy organic so I'm not sure if organic strawberries would be more prone to infestation, I know they're on the dirty dozen but as I said I REALLY like strawberries and can't afford to pay double or more, random-but-usually-not-organic strawberries are sold on the street corners here as low as $1/lb but usually more like $2/lb. I'm sure that contributes to my lack of bug sightings.

Here's what I have found, on those rare occasions that I found anything:
- One box of strawberries had more than one berry with a tiny but fat worm or larva (too grossed out to inspect, trashed before identified) half sticking out. Bleargh.
- A few, but VERY few, occasions found teeny tiny black bugs either on strawberries before washing or in the soak water. Never found these surviving a soak+rinse.
- Those were all the US bug sightings but in Israel once I found a strawberry bug that looked EXACTLY like a strawberry seed except that it was walking around. That was interesting and sure made me look more closely at my strawberries for the next, oh, ten years or so before I realized that my USA non-organic strawberries are just not buggy.

I must say that my lack of bug-sighting (and I do know a bug when I see it; I don't think it's that I'm not looking carefully enough) has made me a little more relaxed about the washing and checking. I still do it, but I'm no longer scrutinizing every single berry. The odds are in my favor.

MagentaYenta, how did you learn so much about vegetable bugs? Do you have some favorite gardening books or something to recommend? Are you a professional entomologist?

*note: I do not know what the origin of all my berries are. Presumably most from US and some from South America. I'm assuming the ones that were surprisingly cheap this February were not US grown.