While making my tour of the orchard yesterday morning I noticed a stinkbug on one of my two Hackworth apples. My normal procedure on villians is to get close and give it a hard thump and it never returns. As I neared it the critter just took to the air and escaped. Then I looked at the apple and it had one small place that had what looked like a drop of apple juice where the stinker was located. I have had heavy damage to pears by stinkbugs but do they also damage apples?
Bill,
Yes, they do.
I have found this link very useful.
Look-a-like late season apple damage by bitter pit, brown marmorated stink bugs or apple maggot - MSU Extension.
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Thanks
I wasn’t planning to bag any fruit this year but I let a few stay that I have never tasted. The bags went on these so hopefully no more damage will occur.
I have sprayed Surround for protection.
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How many times do you need to spray that? I tried regular insecticides and they really did not have much effect. Took your advice from last year and bought the tanglefoot. Ants do major damage here. Next how to stop yellow jackets drilling in fruit. If only I could go back to the first 4-5 years when no problems existed and it was the garden of eden.
Surround deters stinkbugs but it is not my number one enemy. Thus, I don’t really target them but they are collateral damage. I wanted to say they do their damage a couple of weeks after PC. Unfortunately, I saw them mating today. They are here!!
Last year, I sprayed Surround, maybe, 4 times but I also bagged my fruit.
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PC is my problem as well. At first I was using them to thin stonefruit. The ones all bit up would drop off really thinning the fruit nicely, but now they are starting to get a little greedy and wanting to destroy the whole crop. Stink bugs move in waves. They were here bad a few years back. If they are moving in there it is going to be a problem including inside your house.
I do a similar thing as Tippy - the Surround is there for other things but as a side effect it deters the stinkers. I used to stop spraying my pears mid-season but I keep on it now for the stink bug factor. Also I used to stop using Surround as of June but now I keep it in the tank nearly all the time but at a low rate like 1 cup per gallon. Surround helps with many things, it is a pretty amazing product. I am about to start on building up a good coat on the undersides of all the branches to protect against the cicadas.
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