In organic farming, producers often use smelly materials like manure and fish emulsion for a variety of purposes included but not limited to improving soil fertility, reducing municipal solid waste, and managing animal waste.
Ammonia (NH3) and Methane (CH4) are some of the primary compounds emitted into the air during the microbial decomposition and breakdown of organic compounds.
It is these compounds, ammonia and methane, that create the foul smell.
Rot is the attractive scent that attracts flies. This rotting smell includes organic fertilizers that are rotting/decomposing, such as food compost, cow manure, or decomposing leaves.
However, “well-aged” organic fertilizer such as compost, aged cow manure, and pelleted chicken manure do not smell, therefore, do not attract flies.
A pile of moist organic material is the ideal environment for flies to lay eggs, hatch into larvae, and produce even more flies. Additionally, something that is rotting has the smell of a food source for flies.
Are Flies Any Good For The Garden?
An abundance of diversity in your garden goes a long way toward keeping it healthy.
Unless you have an annoying fly buzzing at the worst times of the year, you will be amazed by the wealth of life in your soil.
Every insect plays a pivotal role in maintaining the system in which it lives.
Take a look at the benefits of having flies in your garden below.
Flies Can Be Nature’s Own Pest Control
Many believe that letting flies live in the garden is a better form of pest control.
With some good flies around, you don’t need to spray any synthetic chemical products or lay down strange chemical pellets in the farm.
It may sound strange, but you could really be doing yourself a favor by inviting flies into your garden to help grow better flowers, fruit and vegetables.
Remember this: Organic fertilizers are going to bring in big predatory flies like dragonflies, who eat pests like aphids. Aphids carry many plant diseases as vectors. The flies help create a balance of insect life in your garden.
Flies Can Be Alternate Pollinators
Pollination is vital in any garden; all plants need pollination in order to produce seeds and fruit.
Without pollination, many of the food plants grown cannot finish the reproduction process and will never produce fruits or vegetables.
Adding organic fertilizer will bring in more pollinator flies such as Hoverflies, bee flies, and other bee mimicking flies.
While they may not be as efficient in carrying pollen as true bees, these flies will pollinate many plants that bees may not visit, specifically plants that may not have nectar to entice bees as well as plants that have dull colored flowers or flowers that smell unpleasant to a bee.
The flies care less.
Dedicated Decomposers
Of course, fungi and bacteria are well-known decomposers; however, flies also help with this! Flies, although they have a horrible reputation, help decompose organic matter and return it to the soil in the form of nutrients.
Flies deposit their eggs in manure.
They then hatch into larvae and feed on the decaying mess that helps decompose the manure into its constituents.
They then release nutrients in their feces for plants along with bacteria and fungi to utilize.
How To Get Rid Of Bad Bugs In The Garden Naturally
Decomposing organic fertilizer will draw various types of flies into a garden, and having several flies can be annoying; however, many do not harm the plants nor are they an associate of the plants’ food; they only eat the bad bugs.
Conversely, fruit flies, whiteflies, fungus gnats, and bulb flies are five-course meals for a garden.
They suck the cell content out of plants, feed on vegetables and fruit, or their larvae feed on the roots of the plants, all depending on the species.
What they consume can stunt or inhibit proper plant growth, vitality loss, wilting or discoloured plant leaves, and decreased yields from crop production.
Thus, controlling pests in your gardens is vital to helping your plants from stopping and or correctly producing your plants.
The best way to control pests is to learn who eats whom rather than use sprays and poisons with lethal results that destroy a carefully designed ecosystem by Mother Nature.
The first thing to mention is that it is not wrong to want nature to take its natural course, even if that means encouraging and attracting beneficial flies to your garden to feed on their natural prey.
Critically define any fly you find in your garden into either two categories, good bugs or bad bugs.
Controlling flies in a garden using biological means involves increasing the populations of predatory flies such as robber flies, dragonflies, tachinids, and hoverflies to target and prey on other flies they naturally prey on. Having more will eliminate certain troublesome pests in your garden.
Final Thoughts
Most flies tend to flock in manure and compost piles because of their natural food resource and it is becoming fertilizer for organic farming.
After feeding, the adult fly lays eggs in the same place so that their progeny will have a food source.
In days, the eggs hatch into larvae or maggots, which adds to some people’s aversion to flies.
In fact flies are a good thing in organic gardening. They pollinate your plants so you can get fruit.
Some flies are also predators to some of the more common “bad bugs” like aphids (ladybugs) and some defoliating caterpillars (some wasps).