Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The codling moth is another serious pest. This nondescript
gray and brown moth lays eggs on the fruit. The first eggs
hatch when the fruit is slightly less than one inch in diameter,
and the small worm burrows into the fruit where it eats until it
reaches full size then burrows back out, becomes a moth, and
starts the cycle again. Codling moths are conventionally
controlled by spraying carbaryl or permethrin at least once
every 14 days following petal fall. These poisons can be
avoided by aggressive organic measures including “trapping
out” the male moths by using up to four pheromone traps per
full-sized tree, encircling the tree trunks with flexible
cardboard covered with a sticky coating to trap the larvae, and
spraying frequently with the botanical insecticide ryania.
Stone fruits, like pomme fruits, require constant spraying to
deal with a number of diseases and pests. Chief diseases
include powdery mildew, leaf spot, peach leaf curl, crown
gall, cytospora canker, black knot, and brown spot. Japanese
beetles, fruit moths, aphids, borers, and spider mites round
out the threats.
A regular spraying schedule is required for stone fruits. If
raising the fruit organically, this includes fungicides such as
Bordeaux mix, lime sulfur, and fixed copper and insect
controls such as neem oil, horticultural oil, and organic
insecticides used according to label directions. The spraying
should start when buds swell in the spring and continue with
the frequency specified on the product label until the fruit has
been harvested. All dropped fruit and leaves should be raked
up and removed from the area in the fall.
Black knot of the plum can't be controlled this way and
instead requires that any sections of wood evidencing this
