Rotten mandarins

[Gasman]

No, not Chinese hoodlums , I am talking about the Mandarins which are trying to ripen on our lovely tree . Last year the med. fruit fly got into them and we had the nasty mini-caterpillars in them and they ripened prematurely. This year there is an occasional bug hole but no sign of the fruit fly bugs, just lots and lots of the mini-mini fruit fly that tends to invade the kitchen if you have chopped or gone-off fruit lying about. This year the fruit seem to be rotting from the inside! A lot have fallen off the tree and more are hanging on there but squishy to the touch and soon fall too. There are some of which 2/3 of the fruit is edible, but with a squishy tendency to one side. Is it the med. fruit fly? if so where are the caterpillars? or is due to the excessive rain we had a few weeks ago and they are somehow rotten because of the damp?

[anis]

I don't think it is the damp because we tried our first mandarins yesterday and they were fine and a bumper crop this year. We took quite a lot of care to water them all during the long hot days.
Some of the navel oranges have split which could be due to the heavy downpour from a few weeks ago but that is fairly commonplace for us.
We have two trees that have decided to blossom, that is definitely not the norm.
We get the odd fruit flies too but I don't like to spray the trees, we have enough fruits that are untouched so do not worry about it.

[Gasman]

Thanks for the reply. I have sprayed them while the fruit were immature to ward off the Med fruit fly, but with the few bug holes visible, think they must have got to them anyway. Perhaps the bug-killer has stopped the bugs developing but not stopped the enzyme or whatever it is that causes the fruit to mature too rapidly (so that the bugs have sweet flesh to eat sooner as they develop inside the fruit). Anyway, I am picking and sorting the best fruit so all is not lost, and there is a bumper crop - just wondering what I can do next year to prevent the same happening!