Cherry tree black fly

[BB48]

Just discovered my cherry trees are covered in black fly. Can I spray or will it harm the forming cherries?

thanks

[WendyC]

How big is your tree? With a small tree you could just squish them. As far as spraying goes it won't harm the cherries but depends whether you mind eating chemicals with your fruit.

[starloc]

Cooking oil 1 tepoon per litre of water and a tiny drop of dishwash liquid to emulsify it will kill blackfly, even more powerfull i neem oil ued instead of cooking oil ,

Mine were covered in blackfly yesterday so I have just done my trees with neem oil, usually I use a small garden sprayer and it takes hours as the tree are so big, this year I did it with a giant backpack petrol power sprayer I found in the local supermarket for £75, it can get 12 meters or more up in the air with it from the floor, i went up a 6meter ladder to soak the trees, no blackfly today, all gone

[Jungle Jane]

A fast jet of water knocks aphids off,they can't climb back up. I use a squirt of hand soap & water into a hand squirter,then spray fresh water afterwards & slide them off by hand if there's a colony type gathering. Have you checked for ants? They sometimes farm the aphids. If you wanted to protect the fruit from a chemical (also protects from rain & birds) you could cut a sandwich bag along one side,put the fruiting stem into the the bottom of the slit,then wrap around so its like a cone & gently tie with string? But I wouldn't use a chemical aphids don't cause too much damage if you can reduce the numbers,put ant grease band round the tree?

[BB48]

Thanks for the info very useful.

[shushkin!]

I just wanted to say that I also find Neem Oil really affective. I was really sceptical but it worked! I was amazed and that very rarely happens. Two days later and all the aphids have vanished from my two poor heavily aphid afflicted honeysuckles.
I'm now testing it out on one of my camellias which looks like it has a fungal problem. Fingers crossed.

[fishpond]

I just wanted to say that I also find Neem Oil really affective. I was really sceptical but it worked! I was amazed and that very rarely happens. Two days later and all the aphids have vanished from my two poor heavily aphid afflicted honeysuckles.
I'm now testing it out on one of my camellias which looks like it has a fungal problem. Fingers crossed.

Interested to hear how you get on.