Fruit spotting bugs are a familiar and frustrating problem for many growers across Australia's east coast, affecting many horticultural crops including avocado, custard apple, lychee, macadamia, papaya, and passionfruit.
Both adults and nymphs of these pests inflict substantial economic damage by piercing and sucking on developing fruits, shoots, and terminal buds of crop plants. These pests can cause up to 90 per cent crop loss in avocados and over $20 million annual losses in macadamia due to factory rejection.
Agronomist Jarrah Coates from Coates Horticulture in Cooroy Queensland said the 2026 macadamia season has seen high levels of late fruit spotting bug damage.
"This year we have seen high pressure sites struggling with late season fruit spotting bug management. Once macadamia nut shells have hardened, fruit spotting bug populations become very difficult to accurately monitor."
"The industry has long needed effective monitoring tools for this gap to improve management and returns for growers. Developing effective fruit spotting bug "smart traps" may assist improving late season fruit spotting bug management."
The good news is that a strong research program is underway to better understand these pests and give growers effective, practical tools to manage them. Through levy funds and Frontiers co-investment, Hort Innovation is leading a multi-pronged approach that brings together universities, technology experts and industry to tackle fruit spotting bugs from several angles at once.
Together this research is improving how fruit spotting bugs are monitored and managed through better information, smarter tools and longer-term control options.
Smarter monitoring using artificial intelligence
A team at Macquarie University, working closely with technology company Elegant Media, is developing a new generation of smart pest traps.
Funded through Hort Innovation Frontiers, Macquarie University's research is focused on:
- Identifying better attractants (lures) for fruit and banana spotting bugs
- Improving existing lures by studying plant volatiles that also attract the pests
- Developing long lasting lure delivery systems that work reliably in the field.
At the same time, Elegant Media is building traps that use artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically identify and count spotting bugs caught in traps.
This project combines chemistry, insect behaviour, materials science and field testing. The goal is to give growers accurate, near real time information about spotting bug numbers, without the need to constantly check traps by hand.
In the longer term, growers could have access to traps that are easier to use, last longer, and may even be monitored remotely. Better trap data will help growers know when spotting bug populations are building and when action is really needed.
