[Arid_gardener] Question from Home-Hort WWW page

[CarlRutheford69 at aol.com]

88515
CarlRutheford69 at aol.com

A neighbor is having a problem with a pomegranate tree. For the last few years all his fruit has been ruined by an insect. I have identified the insect as a leaf-footed plant bug. There are 30-40 of the bugs on the fruit at a time. He tried destroying them by hand but most fly away when he approaches. He has tried waiting for a natural predator to take care of them but nothing has happened. He stated that he removes the fruit as soon as it is ripe or cracks. But he states that most of the bugs are on immature fruit. He tried spraying with Malathion but the bugs were back within a week. I have read as much as I could about this. The only new idea mentioned was covering each fruit with a bag. There must be a better way.