What has destroyed my pear crop?

General Fruit Growing
#1

I’m sorry I don’t have time to add a photo, but a description may be enough for someone out there to identify a new pear pest that almost completely wiped out my crop on multiple trees.

The damage is similar to coddling moth but even worse because instead of entering from the base and avoiding the flesh this pest starts right in the center of the pear affecting much more of the flesh and probably making proper ripening of fruit impossible.

I suppose I could look it up- I’d start by checking to see if OFM attacks pears. I controlled it on peaches and nectarines but it took more sprays than usual being much more persistent than usual this season.

Fruit growing requires constant vigilance and evolving tactics, especially in the humid region. I wish the baited poison I used to use very successfully for OFM was still on the market. I am suspicious it was removed to assure more expensive remedies still had a market. A small amount worked like a charm in my orchard with a single app a year.

#2

My guess is OFM, it does attack pears. I had more pears than usual with moth tracks this year, maybe 20%. I had relatively little OFM damage on my peaches this year, but expect the population continued to build over the summer. My mating disruption and spinosad I put down in the spring only.

Mating disruption I have found works extremely well, its somewhat expensive and hard to source though. You also need to cover a broad area uniformly. I need to refresh it once later in the summer but am saving $$ by not doing so.

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#3

Yeah, OFM is becoming increasingly destructive here. With peaches they start in the growing tips and can be stopped there without a lot of spray but this pear thing pretty much sucks.

One more year like this and I may follow your lead on mating disruption.