Any Craneflies sightings yet?

As we push past Mid August it's time to start monitoring Cranefly hatches.

Using PestTracker we got some great information about the Spring Cranefly hatch and we begun to see the value of this data gathering exercise to help us give the Turf industry really good advice.

Syngenta Turf Pest Tracker
Syngenta Turf Pest Tracker

PestTracker has had slow trickle of Cranefly sightings during the season. As I've learnt more about these pest I've begun to understand that there is a number of Cranefly species in the UK that hatch throughout the year. The rogue ones that you see flying around your house aren't the ones that pose a threat to your turf.

The ones you need to pay close attention too are the ones that swarm in late summer / early Autumn.

This mass flight carries enough of the pest to cause a significant problems for sports turf and they will be attracted to well irrigated areas such as Golf greens and tees.

It's this flight pattern we need to log - please when you see mass flights of Cranefly (what mass means will vary from site to site) please help us to help the industry and log them on PestTracker.

Spring 2019 Cranefly hatch

Historically when have we seen cranefly swarms in the UK? It's not as straightforward as you think. Click here.

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