I hung three red sticky spheres in a large standard apple tree in an attempt to control codling moth and apple maggots. So far the apple maggots are gone, but codling moth seems as prevalent as ever. I suspect I might have waited too long, as I hung them in early June, about when June drop was occuring. Perhaps the codling moths had already visited.
Anyone else have similar results?
I've been volunteering at the HOS orchard at CCC and learning a lot.
My orchard is just starting (grafted bareroot apples planted this spring) but I have wanted to understand both of the pests because of the very real destruction and loss they can cause.
From what I have researched and read thus far (I am no authority) the red sticky spheres are specific to apple maggot. The female apple maggot fly is seemingly attracted to the color and odor of newly ripening fruit and therein lays a single egg. A sticky substance on the bait thus entraps her.
Coddling moth eggs are laid on leaves and the hatched worm migrates to the fruit. It seems the strategy for coddling moth control is akin to birth control -- use pheremones (simulating female scents) to lure males into a trap (thus preventing that male from fertilizing/mating with females. As I understand the strategy, unless your sticky spheres included the appropriate pheremones for the coddling moth, the red sphere bait would not attract them.
I am wondering about ways to augment the red sphere approach -- specifically using essential apple oil and/or synthetic chemicals employed by the food flavoring industries that smell like apple (e.g. amyl valerianate). An apple maggot fact sheet I downloaded from Michigan State Extension on this subject additionally recommends ". . . sprinkling one or two teaspoons of fresh ammonium acetate over each trap.". This supposedly enhances the effectiveness of the bait.
I am also curious about the effectiveness of another possible approach to control apple maggot. In the apple maggot fact sheet from Cornell Extension (Suffolk County) is the following: "The full grown maggot (about 3/8 inch long) leaves the fallen fruit and burrows into the soil to a depth of 1 to 2 inches. Here it changes to a puparium, in which stage it overwinters". I am wondering if cultivation of the soils below the trees would be sufficiently distruptive so that the pupa is damaged by mechanical action or sufficiently exposed so that it cannot survive. I also wonder about the possible effectiveness of predatory nematodes
Cleaning up and disposing of windfall is an obvious necessity. It seems that any composting approach (for disposal) would have to prevent the worm from burrowing into the soil or generate sufficient levels of heat in the soil. I am wondering if apple maggot windfall shouldn't first go into a large plastic barrel that is allowed to ferment for an extended period of time before its contents are added to a compost pile. If enough alcohol is generated and the liquid environment excludes oxygen, it may be toxic to the worm.
I am still trying to figure out and understand various strategies for dealing with coddling moth.
If you ferment or generate alcohol with your apples, you don't want them near your compost. Just as it will kill the worms, so it will kill all the life in your compost. Without microbiology, compost isn't worth much.
I found the combo of ziplocs and footies quite effective against codling moth.
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