TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – Cherry growers in Michigan are hoping the answer has been found to a crop damaging insect resistant to pesticides.

Researchers from Michigan State University for the first time recently placed the samba wasp into a select number of cherry orchards in Leelanau County in the northwest part of the state. The goal is controlling the population of the spotted wing drosophila, a fruit fly that feeds on healthy cherries and blueberries.

According to MSU officials, the samba wasp – no bigger than a grain of rice – kills fruit flies by laying its eggs inside the larvae of the invasive pest.

“These are the good bugs,” said Nikki Rothwell, director of MSU’s Extension program at the Michigan State University Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Station near Traverse City.

The spotted wing drosophila, blamed for Michigan losing 21 percent of its cherry crop in 2016, has been one of the most challenging pests to control since arriving in the United States. The release of the samba wasp follows 10 years of research by entomologists looking for a solution to a decade-long battle with the spotted wing drosophila.

According to MSU officials, the fruit flies arrived in Michigan in 2012 and pose a threat to cherry growers, especially in the northwest part of the state because of the late harvest season in that area.

Cherries in the upper region of the state near Lake Michigan are more susceptible because the crop is ready to harvest as the fruit flies reach maturity, officials said.

Officials said cherry growers have used various insecticides to try to manage the population of spotted wing drosophila but none of them have made a long-lasting impact.

“Every grower in Northwest Michigan has had to battle this pest, and it’s a very difficult pest to work with,” said Jim Nugent, a cherry grower and chairman of the state Tree Fruit Commission. “This is so exciting. We have our fingers crossed,” he said.

The wasps, native to Asia, have had success against fruit flies in Washington. If the experiment proves successful, researchers plan another release in southwest Michigan’s blueberry growing region, officials said.

In the spring, MSU researcher Juan Huang traveled to a USDA lab in Delaware and returned with 100 of the wasps.

Huang was also trained in breeding the wasps to create a sufficient number of the wasps to potentially make a noticeable reduction in the fruit fly population in the orchards where they were released.

Researchers will start to assess how successful the wasps were in protecting the cherries from the fruit flies and their potential to survive in Michigan’s climate.

“Although we don’t expect immediate results, the availability of this new biocontrol agent opens up a new chapter in our research on this devastating pest,” said Rufus Isaacs, another MSU researcher involved with the project.

Julianna Wilson, an MSU entomologist and tree fruit outreach specialist, was awarded a $150,000 grant from the Foundation of Food and Agriculture to lead the effort. The foundation is a nonprofit established through bipartisan congressional support in the 2014 Farm Bill.

Wilson said production costs for tart cherry growers have gone up 20-30 percent from dealing with the fruit fly.

MSU, along with the Michigan Cherry Committee and the Michigan State Horticulture Society, matched the grant for a total investment of $300,000 in research to mitigate and prevent future damage from the pest.

“Our team of MSU researchers is building off preliminary research and going to new resources of external funding to find the most effective and cost-efficient integrated pest management strategies for growers,” Wilson said.