Re: Codling Moth

[Sed5555]

There are a few ideas here:

[Sherwin Dubren]

There is a chemical called Imidan in it's 5% formulation that is very effective against Codling Moths. It used to be sold here in the States at Garden stores, but now the government deemed it hazardous for home orchard use. Farmers can still buy the stuff, so if you know one, you can get some from them. It is strong stuff, so you need to take all the necessary precautions like proper clothing and breathing mask. I can expect the 'organics' to blast me on this one, but I have tried organics like Rotenone, and none of them work. I don't know if it is sold in England. Check the internet and you may hook up with a supplier.

Sherw>

[Lawrence Akutagawa]

I have an uncle who swears by nematode worms. There are several places (two are Home Depot and Gardens Alive

here in the US that sell them. The procedure is to spray the ground under your apples trees - and the main trunk - with them as soon as it gets warm in spring, with periodic followups during the season. The idea, according to him, is to attack the insect in the pupae stage. I'm going to give this a try starting a few weeks from now while it is still warm and the insects are getting settled for the winter.

Another approach is to heavily dormant spray the trees several times during the winter to kill as many of the overwintering pupae as possible. An oil based spray will work well by suffocating the pupae. Not 100% effective (you miss some), but it does keep the overall poplulation down.

[Lawrence Akutagawa]

hmm...let's see. A couple of points here....

The only trees with which I am familiar that has foliage or fruit in winter are evergreens - and foliage only at that. Best to my experience, coddling moths are not a problem with conifers. And I do believe that it is winter that my previous post recommended when dormant spraying be done.

The pupae on the one hand are living entities that require air. On the other hand best to my knowledge, they do not have an independent air supply system such that they can be smothered by various means, including dormant oil. The trick, of course, is to cover the cocoons sufficiently with oil that the pupae inside do suffocate. You don't want to or don't need to cover the pupae itself with the oil...you just want to cut off the air supply.

[Sherwin Dubren]

I think you missed the whole point. Dormant oil is effective in smothering eggs, not cocoons. The eggs of the Codling Moth are laid a few days after petal drop, in the Spring. It's bad enough that you are wasting your own time and resources on this approach. Don't mislead others to do the same. If you look on the web for control measures of Codling Moths, most of them don't even mention dormant oil, and the few that do, say it is only mildly effective and should be sprayed on the eggs (not the cocoons). As a typical reference, take a look at this article:

In the cocoons, the insects are essentially dormant and probably don't need a lot of air.

Sherwin Dubren