When beautiful fruit becomes seconds overnight

Every season brings its own challenges in the orchard, and one of the more frustrating ones for dragon fruit growers is stink bug damage.

Stink bugs feed by piercing the skin of the fruit and sucking the juices from just beneath the surface. The damage they cause is mostly superficial and runs skin-deep, meaning the flesh inside the fruit is often still perfectly good to eat. However, the small punctures and marks they leave behind can make otherwise stunning fruit look blemished.

For growers selling at markets or supplying premium fruit, this can quickly turn A-grade fruit into unsellable fruit.

Instead of smooth, vibrant skin, the fruit may show:

• Small puncture marks

• Slight scarring or spotting

• Uneven colour patches around the feeding site

While the eating quality is usually unaffected, market customers often choose fruit based on appearance first. This means growers need to find alternative uses or processing options for fruit that would otherwise have been top grade.

Patchy Damage in the Orchard

Interestingly, stink bugs rarely spread evenly across an orchard. It is quite common to see them target only one or two plants, leaving neighbouring plants untouched.

This behaviour can make them tricky to monitor, as damage may appear suddenly on a few plants rather than across the whole planting.

Managing Stink Bugs

Many commercial orchards rely on chemical controls to manage stink bugs. However, on our farm we choose not to use chemical pesticides. Instead, we focus on observation, orchard balance, and accepting that nature will always take a small share of the crop.

Because the damage is only skin deep, affected fruit can still be used in other ways, such as:

• Dehydrating

• Freeze drying

• Juicing or processing

• Cooking and recipes

Finding new ways to use this fruit helps ensure that very little goes to waste, even when nature throws us a curveball.

Farming with Nature

Growing fruit without chemical pesticides means learning to work with the natural ecosystem rather than trying to control every element of it. While pests like stink bugs can be frustrating, they are also part of a balanced environment.

And sometimes, they simply remind us that farming is never completely perfect — but it can still be incredibly rewarding. 🌿