Excerpt from the Popular Garden Series magabookOrchardingwith permission from its newspaper publisher , BowTie magazines , a partition of BowTie Inc. PurchaseOrchardinghere .
Keypestsof fruit trees include a numeral of the butterflies and moth , such as the Oriental fruit moth , talk twig borer , leafrollers , fleeceable fruit worm and codling moth . These orchard pest insect have a sodding metamorphosis , which means they go through four clear-cut stage of ontogenesis : egg , larva ( caterpillar ) , pupa ( cocoon or chrysalis ) and adult . As larva , butterflies and moth are chewers and , as adult , they are nectar feeders . It is the larval stage that does the damage in this group of orchard pest insect .
The codling moth is “ the worm apple . ” Codling moth is far-flung and very damaging , and besidesapplesalso attackspearsand English walnuts . The adult moth is about 1/2 - in long , mottled gray with tell apart copper - colored bands along the bottom edge of the wing . The larva is lily-white to perch pink with a glum chocolate-brown headland and touch about 1/2 - in long by remnant of larval stage . A Codling moth overwinters in a cocoon under debris or bark scales , or in thesoil . There can be up to four generations of codling moth per year depending on temperatures . As with all dirt ball , the pace of codling - moth development is highly temperature sensitive .
disk - influence codling moth eggs are laid severally on fruit , nuts , leaves and twigs in the natural spring . The larva hatch and burrow into the fruit to feast , tunneling around and finally dropping out to pupate . The holes left by the codling moth are covered with chocolate-brown frass ( droppings ) and are sometimes hide on the blossom final stage of the fruit . On walnut , codling moth feed on kernel , make premature drib or uneatable orchis . Damage is usually more severe on late change , so consider grow early grow apple and pears .
Codling moths are monitored with pheromone - tantalise traps . The developmental cycles/second of this moth can be prognosticate fairly accurately by forecast the accruement of academic degree - 24-hour interval from the time that moths are pin and the time that the temperature at sunset is more than 62 degree Fahrenheit ( this is called the biofix ) . A degree - day is a unit that is used to measure gadfly development ; an well-to-do - to - use arcdegree - solar day calculator is available at theUSPest.org website .
Good orchard sanitization can help disrupt the reproductive wheel of the codling moth . Starting about six to eight weeks after bloom , check fruit for damage . take away and destroy any with frass - fill up holes ( be sure to check blossom end ) . Always pick up fallen yield . Keep orchards devoid from junk and debris to reduce the sites for pupation . Another tactic get at the pupa is trunk banding . Large - sized corrugated cardboard is wrapped around the torso to tempt the larva from the body into the cardboard to pupate . By most counts , this method is not extremely effective , but the emotional atonement of starting a burnpile with the codling moth - fill composition board might be worth the effort ( just be sure to chase out your friendly wanderer first ) .
Another advance to control is aggregate trapping . you may use commercial-grade pheromone trap at a high rate , but these lying in wait attract only the males ( and it ’s the female codling moths that do the impairment ) . A homemade codling moth maw can be made from a 1 - congius Milk River jug hold 1 cup of cider vinegar , 1/3 cup dark molasses , 1/8 teaspoonful ammonia and enough water to make 1 1/2 quarts . Cap the bottle and cut a 2 - inch diam hole . Hang one to three traps per tree diagram .
British Labour Party - intensive , but extremely good , barrier method of mastery is fruit bagging . Four to six weeks after bloom , when the fruit strain 1/2- to 1 - in diam , put bags over the yield . Use stock - sizing dejeuner bags with a 2 - inch slit in the bottom . Thin the fruit , then mistake one suitcase over each fruit through the slit and staple the subject close exclude . Remove bag shortly before harvest to allow colour to build up in crimson assortment .
A tiny epenthetic white Anglo-Saxon Protestant , Trichogramma platneri , is commercially usable to help with pest control . start up when orchis - laying begins , you may releaseTrichogrammawasps in each Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , repeating every calendar week or two . This method is often combined with mate disruption . In a mating disruption program , pheromone dispensers are placed all over the woodlet and exude the alluring perfume of distaff Codling moth . The idea is that the Male will be so overwhelmed that they wo n’t be able to find the real females . sexual union disruption is usually efficacious only in gravid , reasonably undifferentiated blocks of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ( more than 5 landed estate ) some length from other host trees .
chemic control condition for Codling moths expect accurate timing . Sprays must be applied just before or as eggs hatch because the spraying must reach the larva before they burrow . Degree - days are used to meter sprays ; the first spray is applied around 250 to 300 degree - days . Spinosad , a bacterial insecticide , and summertime fossil oil , a horticultural mineral oil used as a fungicide and an insect powder , are both used for codling moths . Conventional pesticides are also used , but are more riotous to natural enemy and bees .
