Paper Wasps vs Leafminer Flies

Our secret weapon against the leaf minors is the common paper wasp. They have built up a colony under the house easement above Alejandro Pepper Farm. These paper wasps are known to enjoy feeding on caterpillars, flies, and many other pesky insects that feed on our crops.

Though there sting can be strong, these wasps are basically social and only attack when defending themselves and their home. The nest pictured should be about as big as it gets since they're nest typically are up to about 30 wasps. I've destroyed these in the past but now I'm understanding the benefits they have for our garden. They pollinate and feed on nectar and eat flies to feed to their larva.

Leafminer Flies on Pepper Plants

Do you have squiggly lines on your pepper leaves? We discovered several on our pepper plants and with a little research found out we had a leaf miner problem. You can see in the picture below what appears to be a squiggly trail created on the leaf. This is actually the larva from a leafminer fly. The larva are actually inside the leaf tunneling through and enjoying the needed nutrients to maturity.

Some websites recommend to cut the leaves off and place sticky traps around the plants to catch these flies. However, with more research there doesn't seem to be any remedy for this problem. The sticky traps may have some effect but certainly not a cure-all. We went ahead and placed several through-out our pepper plants and as been somewhat useful in capturing some of these pests. We did cut off some leaves but will do so sparingly in the future as to not hurt the plant.

We've also learned that I'll need to learn to co-exist with leafminers but attempt to keep them from getting out of hand. I've learned from other accounts that this doesn't effect your yield of peppers. Since this is our first year in growing peppers we are anxious to learn the outcome.

Above are Serrano Pepper plants that seem to be thriving. In the back you can see a sticky trap that seem to be doing the job.