Apple Season Pest Control Tips

Maine’s apple season is at its height, which means a variety of pest issues are occurring in the orchards. While fall is the season when Maine residents and visitors focus on apples, maintaining pest control is an all year job. Knowing some basic pest information and tips for year round apple orchard pest control can help you manage pests. Prevention is key for pest control, so learning to prepare apple trees for the coming year can go a long way in protecting your fruit. Some of the most common apple related pests include:

Plum Curculio

These pests are perhaps best recognized by the characteristic crescent shaped scar they leave on fruits like apples, plums, apricots, and cherries. Plum curculios spend the winter under leaf litter at the edges of woodlots before emerging in May to move into orchards to mate. They then lay eggs into developing fruit for about 6-8 weeks, leaving crescent shaped scars. The larvae feed inside the fruit until the apple falls, when they move to the soil to pupate and emerge as adult beetles. Adult plum curculios feed on apples until they retreat into their overwintering sites.

Codling Moth

Codling moth larvae burrow into apples and pears to feed on the fruit and seeds. They are often recognizable by an entry hole with sawdust-like excrement at the blossom end of the fruit. Insecticide sprays with carbaryl or phosmet can be used to ward off plum cuculios and codling moths when used at the right time.

Apple Maggot

Apple maggots overwinter in the soil of orchards until they reach adulthood. Once grown, females lay eggs into apples, where the larvae fed on the flesh of the fruit causing a brown trail inside the apple. Once apple maggot and other types of larvae are feeding inside the apple, they are protected from any pest control measures, so insecticides and repellents should be used just before the eggs are laid. Red spheres coated with a sticky substance can also be used to trap adult apple maggot flies.