This is a coddling moth lure on the sticky card in a delta trap. It was hard for me to ID the moth once caught!
Using uspests.org, I determined degree days and set out traps on July 1 for my location. Height of CM activity was July 16. The lures were good for 3 months.
As @CRhode indicated the lures are not intended as a moth eradicator only as an indicator. Only male moths are attracted to lure. Most of my traps only indicated 2 or 3 moths (AND I’m not sure of the moths’ ID). My damage was minimal. However, this year was unusual with 3 months without rain, so that may have been a factor, plus I initially applied 2 sprays of Surround. So, really, there are too many variables to be sure of efficacy.
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They are offered by several companies:
as @CRhode stated they are for ID coddling moths (only male moths are attracted to lures). Then traps with lures are not intended to catch all moths, just to give you an indication about when moths are flying.
I had an apple maggot fly and a codling moth infestation for the first 10 years of growing here. I tried bagging, traps, etc until my trees became so prolific that these methods became too much labor. So the I read about what the commercial growers do with Surround. Since I had two significant insect issues to address, I started using Surround with Bonide Fruit tree insecticide. Over time my issues began to subside, but it was gradual until I better understood how to apply the slurry. The first year was only partially successful. I determined that my clay was not really adhering to the fruit long enough to make a protective coating, so the second year I started when fruit was no larger than a quarter. I modified my slurry to include a tablespoon of liquid dish washing detergent, and for the first application, I sprayed each fruit 3 times with drying time between each application. Then either each week or immediately after each rainfall until apples were mature, I repeated the application.
Finally after several years of trials, I had no significant damage on any of my varieties. My Tompkins King was the most susceptible to codling moth, primarily because of the way the fruit clusters form making it very challenging to get spray into the stem end. So I learned I have to not allow just two fruits per cluster, rather now I thin to either one or three fruits per cluster. This works best so that there is space between each fruit at the stem end, thus allowing a protective clay layer to form at the stem end. With the entire apple coated, insects are deterred.
So I felt like my years of trials were successful, until this year when my family asked me to skip the chemical addition. At first I resisted the change, but eventually I decided to compromise.
Being skeptical I decided to try several trees with and several trees without Bonide. Last week I harvested all varieties and was pleasantly surprised that I had absolutely no damage by insects on any of my varieties.
So if you are looking for an organic solution to these two pests, I recommend using this method as it sure beats bagging or trapping! Now I will use only Surround on all varieties in 2022!
There is one question I have about my Honeycrisp. This year about 1/3 of my fruit split open from the stem all way thru the fruit, se pic. I have no idea what would cause this unless it was a super dry summer even though I watered profusely, each week. Of all my varieties: Tompkins King, Chehallis, Cortland, and Honeycrisp, only the latter exhibited this issue. So if you grow this variety and know what may cause splitting, please advise.
With this dry summer, how many Surround applications after your initial three? After two applications, the ghostly appearance on mine was hard to look at and I stopped spraying!!
Hi Christine,
Probably about Six to eight times. I usually stop in mid to late July unless a significant rain occurs. April thru July is the period when I try to assure there is a complete clay cover, so as the fruit itself grows you need to renew the protective cover.
Dennis
This is from https://uspest.org, using my location as a guide for apple maggot emergence. If you enter your zip, you’ll get data for last year’s emergence at your location.
I’ve used Iimidan for at least 20 years with excellent control with less than 1% wormy. One year I used organic sprays and got more than 10%wormy. Back to imidan but this year I had more than 10% wormy so maybe my moths are resistant to imidan
Mike,l
I think Dennis talked about mixing Bonide Fruit Tree Spray in Surround. They are two separate products. As you may know, you can mix most anything with Surround. However, many people using Surround prefer an organic approach, they tend to avoid mixing non-organic spray in it.
I redid my spinosad codling moth treatment honeycrisp apple count this year on a different honeycrisp tree. I was much less vigilant in spraying this year with the 7-10 day spray window - it drifted up to 14 days two to three times.
I went from 85% perfect/near perfect in 2021 to 79% and from 15% damaged to 21%. So slightly worse, but not as bad as I thought it would be with my lax spraying.
See my original post to get the caveats. This doesn’t mean I had 79% perfect apples - if a bird pecked it, but it had no codling moth damage, I still scored it perfect on the moth assessment. (But I put it in the “eat sooner” box for damaged apples when I put them in the converted freezer to fridge chest cooler.)
Also, I’m amazed I got 250 apples from a tree that is 13 years old but only perhaps 9 feet wide at the bottom and perhaps 10 feet tall. I don’t know the rootstocks it’s on, but it took 6+ years to get going…
I think you may want to consider bagging your apples.
I have all kinds of insects, plum curculios, coddling moths, apply maggot flies, oriental fruit moths, stink bugs, etc.
I spray 2-3 times a combo of pesticide and fungicide until apples (or any fruit I want to bag size up enough to bag. With apples, I use sandwich, ziplock bags.
I bagged around 500 apples this year. So, your 250 apples would not not too much. The result has been great. 95% apples are bug-free. A few had bugs gotten to them before I could bag them.
I don’t have to spray through the summer. The time spent on bagging was less than the time I would have spent on setting up spray, spraying, cleaning up sprayers, etc. At least, that is my experience.
I do spray synthetics. The timing of spray is very essential.
With a small orchard like ours, bagging is another good option, IMHO.
I love assessments and comparisons like you shared. Well done! I have all sorts of comparisons between varieties for my apples and grafts: disease response and insect damage, graft success by tree, by provider of scion, and by variety, comparison of graft vigor of a single variety on multiple trees, and so on.
I think @Auburn cut bottom part of a bag off completely. That helps a great deal with air ventilation. You could try both ways, bags with two bottom corners cut off and bags with the bottom part trimmed all off.
A related question from a friend: what other insects are most commonly caught in maggot fly and coddling moth traps — especially what beneficial insects?
Dunno, but there are plenty — probably mosquitos and gnats that’ll land on anything. Perhaps a more relevant question is what portion of the population of certain species is trapped.
