How to prevent worms in apples

Definitely check with your extension agent. Not only for help on controls, but some areas REQUIRE pest management of home trees and orchards. I live in a significant apple growing region and in an attempt to reduce the pest population in the area, any homeowners failing to "maintain" their trees will find themselves slapped with a fine. On the flip-side, they've recently started a program where for each apple tree you allow them to cut down (they will happily do it, saving you the labor), they will provide two boxes of apples each year, of the variety of your choice, for the next 10 years... and yes, there are organic apples available.

Cheers!

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snotbottom
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Your biggest problem is the size of this tree. It makes netting and other similar measures impractical. If you are crazy about the taste of this apple, you can preserve it by grafting it to another tree or rootstock. What ever you do, if you replace this tree, do it with a dwarfed version that you can more easily handle. I have several dwarf apple trees and have been able to almost eliminate spraying by covering the fruit with ziplock bags as it emerges. I still have to do the dormant oil spray and possibly one insecticide spray before petal emergence. Covering all your apples may be impractical however. If you have an apple maggot or codling moth problem, I have found that Diazonon aka Imidan or Sevin works on them. Sticky traps will slow them down, but they are expensive. I make my own sticky traps with plastic balls coated with red foil and Tanglefoot. Stopping Apple Maggots and Codling Moths is very tricky as you have to spray in a short window when they emerge as flying adult insects. Commercial guys do fancy things with degree day calculations to figure when this happens and also carefully monitor traps to decide the best time to spray them. As home growers, we can only hit them very week or so to hopefully get them at the correct time. As flying adults, you should be able to knock them out with something like Sevin. Plum Curculio is another pest that attacks apples. The ONLY thing that will kill them is Diazonon.

So I recommend removing your old tree. Replace it with a dwarf tree. Cover the fruits you value with bags or these 'footsie' nylon socks. I think those are your best choices.

Sherwin

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Sherwin

Reply to
Wuensch, Karl L.

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