Found 6 of them on three (of 6 total) of our peach trees, it was a massacre. Does anybody know if a mixture of clay/lime/diatomaceous earth will repel them in the future?
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They quickly get in the tree wood so are out of reach. So they are hard to kill without poisons. I paint raw undiluted neem on the trunk bottoms and it does a pretty good job, “90% control” or something like that. Out of 25 trees I had two infected in the last year. It needs to be painted on when the insects are laying eggs so the timing is important.
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Gotcha, is there any use in me covering up my barber-surgeon hackjob on these tree roots? Or should I leave it exposed for a bit? Im sure there’s another one or two in there. But the trees have good soil and are healthy.
I just leave them exposed to dry out..
I can’t help but wonder what in the world orchardists did before all the spraying interventions and generally anything that relied on the industrialized world for stuff like this
For borers they dug them out. I used that method for several years and the more you do it the better you get at it. The real scourge for them was the plum curculio, the old books show how they would beat the trunks and then the chickens would eat the bugs that fell. A lot of work!
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Crazy to do that much digging at the roots on acres of peaches. I’ve seen in Michael phillips book they had a tree shaking upside down umbrella contraption for the curculio. Clever stuff.
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I dump 10 gallons of wood ash from my wood heater around each peach tree yearly. No borers. You will find a lot of people saying this doesn’t work. When queried, they used a gallon or so of wood ashes and guess what it did not work.
Which reminds me, it is time to dump my wood ashes. I have several large bags ready to go.
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How well do certain plants work as repellents? Like onions, garlic, ir mint?
Zilch in my experience. The only thing I’ve found effective at preventing them is wood ashes in abundance.
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I maybe have 25 or 30 per year, I’d need 60 gallons probably unless it’ll do to put half the amount closer to the tree
Has anyone tried limewash? I see it referenced a lot as a trunk protector for bugs and sun, and they still use it in the old world. Mexico too I think. Not a white paint wash, but a thicker coat of hydrated lime, maybe a little salt or oil added to help it stick. I may give it a shot, if it doesn’t work I’m just at square one except for the protective measure against the sun. If it does work I will have good news for everyone. Lime is very cheap
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Sure any experiment is worth trying. I learned that raw neem worked because I had a gallon of it I was about to throw out since I had no use for it, and decided instead to see how it did on the borers. Surprise, it worked.
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I think maybe 1 or 2 got on my peaches this year as well, I probably didn’t do a great job with fruit tree guard at the base, also my mulch had kinda broke down and formed a layer at the base too, should have cleared it earlier. Still seems healthy but I assume it’ll have a bit of setback.
@scottfsmith is it safe to apply white paint with a little permethrin if pressure is heavy?
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Anyone ever try beneficial nematodes?
Steinernema carpocapsae is supposed to work well.
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Whatever you apply, it has to be at the correct time. Permethrin won’t do anything unless the females aren’t actively landing on the tree and laying.
@weatherandtrees Interesting! I’d never heard of that. I looked it up and UC IPM says yes, it works. They’re pretty good usually. Even though I’m on a different coast I’ve used their resources to scout for pests and such.
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/home-and-landscape/peachtree-borer/#gsc.tab=0
I am trying @scottfsmith’s plan for two pests this year! I already got a gallon of raw neem - the kind he linked to. Also, I got cheap horrid bird netting (and the plastic chain lock) to try for keeping squirrels from getting to fruit.
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I know you want natural but soil drench once yearly in late dormant season of Imidacloprid 1.47% is only solution I found that works.
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Look up a 1986 Article titled “ borer control in young almond trees”. They found carbaryl (sevin) mixed into paint and applied to trunks gave nearly complete control.
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Do you know if anyone has ever tested pure lime wash