I have used ziplocs. Too much plastic in the earth already.
I have used the fruit sox. I have about 1000 apples. Too much work.
I just bought Surround kaolin clay mixture to spray on the trees.
Has anyone else used it?
I tried just spraying clay on them last year. It was a dismal failure.
Any advice on how to use Surround? Any other techniques?
Thanks,
JohN S
PDX OR
I've got a good size bag of it that I haven't used yet. I don't have much time or patience for spraying, and our weather hasn't gotten the memo.
Maybe a couple of sprays in July during the dry season would be worth the return if they discourage successive generations of apple maggot.
I did not bag my apples this year, and the damage from coddling moth and apple maggot was high. One interesting thing, Jonagold was ruined - every apple was badly damaged. Liberty was unaffected. Others were mixed.
According to WSU, Surround can help but must be applied weekly or every other week until harvest. Footies are supposedly effective. I will try paper bags this year. I bought them last year but wasn't up to it when needed. For coddling moth, they say remove debris under the trees, and wrap trunks with corrugated cardboard to trap them as they climb up the tree. They don't mention using Tanglefoot. That works great for stopping ants from climbing into figs, so i imagine it will help. The corrugated cardboard traps have to be removed, I think. I think I'll try the tanglefoot for apples (coddling moth not maggots).
This is the reference I read.
I had a lot of apple sunburn damage due to the hot spell. I bought a bag of surround to spray in case another super hot spell comes. The white coating reflects some sunlight.
UMinn extension claims that kaolin is effective. I would think that after rainy season, it would stay on the tree for most of the summer and not need weekly application.
My plan for 2022:
1. Prune for height I can reach without ladders. I am doing that anyway. The challenge is finding a sweet spot between what I can reach, but deer don't. That also means, no long branches, which droop to within deer range when loaded with fruit even if too tall for thinning and bagging an May/June.
2. Superior oil spray during winter. That reduces insects and scale that overwinter in bark.
3. Bag what I can, when apples form and after thinning.
4. Surround spray as often as I can manage, every one or two weeks until dry season starts.
5. Tangfoot - in May, I guess.
I do remove fallen fruit in fall. The problem is, I don't want to remove mulch, which has too many benefits.
Edit: More fromWA State extension. Surround At Home every 7 to 14 days starting in June.
I also found an article aboutbeneficial nematodes. They arenot cheap.
Great post, Daniel.
I mostly didn't do ziplocs or fruitsox for the last two years. I noticed after the first year that Sturmer Pippin was massacred by apple maggot. I put fruitsox only on Sturmer Pipplin. It made a huge difference. Sturmer Pippin is said to be one of the great storage apples. I saw some of that storage ability. I am interested to see what happens after this year. They have mostly stayed without bugs.
If they store really well, I may continue to put fruitsox on that variety. On most of my apples, I get a bit of codling moth, but I can still eat the apples. It may make a difference in the most extreme storage apples. They store longer with no bug bites. My best storage apple is Gold Rush. It holds out for a year, and still has both taste and texture. I may continue with the partial fruit sox next year and try to spray the surround.
When would we put the cardboard on? When to take it off? I may use the tanglefoot as well. What's the timing on that?
Thanks,
JOhn S
PDX OR
When would we put the cardboard on?
It would vary by crop type and location. In my opinion there should be a transparent form of cardboard made so that we can successfully count and determine it.
Another advantage of transparency is the needed level of confidence one gains that the method works, and as well, which trees are most attracted by them. Maybe the plastic cardboard idea should be temporarily banded over top with 'something to exclude the light' too.
At least one study from California have proven that these moths have learned to infest plums in central parts of the state. Those have shifted to become an ecotype of the same species having an earlier role of activity in the season than 'apple eco-types'. When the plums were removed and apple and walnut trees were nearby they went to infest walnut and not apple. Showing that they last evolved from California walnut orchards.
John S said
When would we put the cardboard on? When to take it off? I may use the tanglefoot as well. What's the timing on that?
When I volunteered with the Portland Fruit Tree Project, we installed corrugated cardboard, bands around 8” tall maybe 8-12” off the ground, tall grass/vegetation considered, and ACV (apple cider vinegar) traps at the time we returned to a site to thin apples. I’d guess that would be near when the computer models for coddling moth degree days in our region would indicate activity. Removal to check and burn or drown and reapply a new band could happen multiple times throughout the season to monitor. We didn’t schedule returns to check or maintain/reapply these traps as our teams had established arbitrary dates for the seasons four visits that worked for the team members. I suppose that late season pupae might be effected as well, imagining that some might find they’re way traveling both up and down the trunk. We pulled the cardboard bands off at the scheduled fall cleanup visit. Probably more effective to change them out more frequently. Some is better than none by my thinking.
All you need is two naked electric heat trace lines wrapped around and one low 12 volt very cheap solar cell. Save all the trouble replacing cardboard. One naked heat trace would hug the tree rather tight. Every few inches add a small schedule-80 PVC cut from a gray electrical conduit on the first conductive ring. On all of that the second naked ring. This completes the trap. Now to electrify -each respective wire of the cell pack (usually a red and a black) connect to each ring. Add any style tiny light bulb such as rated for 24 volts AC to protect the cell from an accidental overload such as bare wiring touching each other around the termination points at the trunk.
If the spacing is set just right no larvae will make it through alive. Heat trace lines are flat enough to easily accomplish the task.
Wiring wise please refer to a technician. Each naked ring (pair of conductors) should be treated as one conductor to be connected to each cell lead. The bulb will brake into any part of the series loop.
I have never seen it done before, I just know it will kill anything small enough that knows how to squeeze through that has tender skin like larvae. I'm not sure what would happen to the earwigs though, that feed on larvae.
To keep this safe for yourself never connect this to household power because of code violations and safety to life.
Rooney that is some serious engineering. At least for me. I wouldn't mind electrifying to keep deer out, but I think not. Plus I might worry about potential liability issues, if someone who is not supposed to be poking around my trees does, and winds up with a heart attack. A tree that tasers... welcome to the 21st Century 😀
Anyway, Ive been doing some serious reading on the topic, both apple maggots and coddling moths. I think it's time to assess my situation and make some changes. My thoughts continue to evolve. Fall is a good time for planning, and winter is a good time to put some plans into action. Here are some of my current thoughts -
(1). Most of my apple trees have s thick layer of leaf mulch. That has good points - soil enrichment, weed control, moisture retention. However, if that's where the coddling moths and apple maggots overwinter, maybe it's time I re-think and change to grass. I did that with plums, cherries, and peaches a few years ago, and they are doing fine.
(2). I need to assess which trees I can un-deer-fence. Removing fencing makes them easier to manage in every way, so long as deer don't stand on hind legs and reach up. The big challenge there is keeping the branches both high enough, and those high branches need to be short. Otherwise, when laden with fruit, they droop into perfect deer browsing height. Lesson learned.
(3). I think I'll treat the soil with a beneficial nematode drench. That should decrease numbers of both types of maggots. According to one seller, they may persist more than a year.
(4). I have some San Jose scale. Two years ago, during the winter, I used superior oil spray. I don't know if that helps with bark dwelling apple maggot and coddling moth eggs. I could't find that info. Yet.
(5). The impression I get is that bark wraps are not 100%, but do help some. So I will try them.
(6). I might buy a few cheap apple and smear them with tanglefoot, as some people recommend. ThT might help with monitoring, too.
(7). I will give Surround At Home a try starting about June.
Thems my thoughts so far. All depends on many factors. I would like more apples without these critters inside them next year.
John S said
I have used ziplocs. Too much plastic in the earth already.I have used the fruit sox. I have about 1000 apples. Too much work.
I just bought Surround kaolin clay mixture to spray on the trees.
Has anyone else used it?
I tried just spraying clay on them last year. It was a dismal failure.
Any advice on how to use Surround? Any other techniques?
Thanks,
JohN S
PDX OR
I guess with the help of the new WSU information of having to consistently apply Surround against codling moth and apple maggot, that it may have poured allot of water on it for you?
Daniel: Great information. I covered all that.
I still think cardboard trapping and dormant oils are the only two that's needed. I don't think that in our milder conditions these critters spin silk life lines down the tree tips of branches and into the soils the way critters in the far north (ie. Minnesota) have evolved to do. So I'm thinking in colder winter areas the overwintering cocoons must be under the blanket of protection of snow.
I have seen spruce trees overhanging a riverbank while fishing interior Alaska. These were some type of spruce moth I am thinking, but they were larvae populations spinning towards the ground from branches. For instance almost all of the pollinators in Alaska live and overwinter in the ground because they must to survive.
Garden spiders of the types that spin webs traps in the air never exist in Alaska interiors either.
From all this one must surmise a shift in culture of survival or being eaten, and therefore too much emphasis may be put in certain areas for cardboard trapping in places where codling moths or Apple maggot may spin through the air to get down.
I have no reason to doubt that even in our climate the worms WiLL be sliding down silk web threads; recently happened by some drying hemp plants and the light accented exactly that phenomenon … teeny tiny little worms.
Cardboard collars should get some trunk crawlers either coming or going. A sheltered resting place for mid journey, maybe stay for the duration, caught in a biological imperative.
I too acquired a bag of surround last year, or was it the year before?, after it was too late for bugs, intending to get up to speed on usage for this year, for a try at the bugs and for the sunburn barrier effects. Didn’t get to it… yet. By the way, Tonya’s methodology, at the arboretum, now Home Orchard Education Center, was to use Cyd-X, kind of coddling moth specific bacteria (uhh, BT like?) until the dryer season, when she would apply surround for sunburn and apple maggot and later generations of coddling moth. Cyd-X will hopefully build the bacteria population up in the soil over time. Surround is way cheaper to buy.
Not quite 40years ago, I moved in with some folks leasing 3 acres of blackberry overgrown ex-pig farm. Uncovering some mature apple and pear and plum trees, the more agriculturally minded instigator of the group set about to prepare the trees for production. This included peeling and scraping off the loose and rough overlay of outgrown bark from the trunks to remove existing and future bug incubating/hiding places. I don’t think he used any dormant oil spray that year as the result. Just a few trees, maybe standards, maybe 30-40 years old at the time, they looked really good when worked over that way. Smooth-ish bark skin at that point.
Cyd-X is not a bacterium, it is a very host specific virus (Cydia pomonella granulovirus). In other words, it is a virus that only infects and kills the larvae of codling moth. They must ingest it, so it needs to be on the leaves and fruit, not the ground. Here’s some information about it from Arbico Organics: https://www.arbico-organics.co.....lars-moths . I have not used it. I don’t seem to get codling moth damage in my orchard. I did put out Cidetrak CMDA Combo Meso-A pheromone dispensers https://www.trece.com/products.....mbo-mesoa/ this past year to hopefully stay codling moth free. So far, so good. There isn’t much data to say how well these products work in the home orchard environment with only a few trees, as they are designed for commercial orchards. It seems like it wouldn’t hurt to try.
I’ve had very good results using GF-120 NF Naturalyte for apple maggot. GF-120 is an OMRI labeled spinosad that is baited to specifically attract and kill apple maggot flies and other tephritid fruit flies like walnut husk flies and cherry fruit flies. You only need coarse droplets on the undersides of some leaves, but you do need to spray every 7 days. Unfortunately it is very expensive and not available in small enough containers for the average homeowner to use up before it expires.
Here is a link to the old HOS forum, with coddling moth experiences of members at that time. I thought it made for helpful and interesting reading. There is some disagreement regarding the benefits of chickens. We also have Indian Runner ducks - one at the moment, the others were victims of some duckicidal maniac varmint serial killer - and ducks are more aggressive and thorough scavengers than chickens. However, their part of the yard is too far from my orchard to be of benefit.
Also for Apple Maggot here:
It was interesting that someone commented that in his area, deer eat fallen apples, so cleanup isn't needed. My neighborhood deer mostly ignore the apple and pear fruits, concentrating on the leaves. Where I had tall branches, the fruits bent the branches low. Deer ate all of the leaves, but didn't touch fruits. Chickens do eat a lot of fallen fruits, so there is that benefit.
One thing I wonder about. If the life cycles for both insects require an in-soil stage, would there be benefit of a paper or plastic mulch? Not that I want to add to the world's plastics burden. This year, I used grocery store brown paper bags as a mulch under determinate Roma tomatoes. During most years, my late crop of those develops fungal diseases from splashing soil spores onto the leaves. Also slugs eat some. With the paper mulch, there was no leaf fungal disease, no slug damage to fruits, and I watered only three times during the summer. At end of season, the paper went into the compost. I could try buying a roll of brown contractor paper at the big box store, roll it onto the ground under a couple of apple trees, and see what happens. My trees are mostly dwarfs and columnar types, so the area isn't as much as for full size trees. Brainstorming. Maybe birds would eat any maggots that land on the paper, or they would just perish without their needed drop directly into soil. I don't know. Might also keep the soil moisture level up. Also help with weeds.
Fall and Winter are good times to work these issues out. Fewer garden jobs to do, so more time available to think.
Red faced again 
; I did know Cyd-X was not a bacterium but that specific virus to codling moth. Wasn’t thinking clearly. I also didn’t mean to imply that the application was to anywhere but the tree trunk, leaf surfaces all, and the fruits; still, hoping there may be some transfer over time to the soil. Also remembering after seeing it in print, the Spinosad product was the later employed. Surround was in the rotation, as the clay would be evident when I visited. I haven’t frequented the now HOEC arboretum for a couple or 3years
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