Knowledgebase

Apple Maggots - Home Apple Trees #680825

Asked February 13, 2021, 7:04 PM EST

I'm a home gardener in SW Portland, and I have 2 Fuji apple and 1 Asian pear tree.  All are espaliered and easy to spray thoroughly.  I've had good success with Dormant spray (sulfur or copper for scab and oil for bugs).  I also clean up leaves, fallen fruit, etc. in the fall.  However, over the past 5 years, I'm having an increasing problem with apple maggots, which appear to be in the pears as well.  I use traps for coddling moths and red sticky balls for apple maggots.  The red balls and oil dormant spray clearly aren't effective.  The attached photo shows what I'm up against.  The on-line advice is confusing, somewhat conflicting, and different chemicals are recommended by different advisors.  I'd prefer to be as organic as possible.  What do you recommend?

Multnomah County Oregon

Expert Response

Codling moth is a more common problem than apple maggot, but both can affect apple fruit. Codling moth can be a problem in Asian pear as well, although I am not sure about the attractiveness of that to apple maggot. /However, the sunken brown depressions visible in the fruit are not the work of either of these pests, whose larvae bore into the fruit. The depressions are the work of the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB). These stink bugs are a relatively new pest in the PNW. They affect a lot of different host plants including pears, asian pears and apples. The links below provide information on management of these pests.

We grow apples, pears (European) and plums in our home orchard. The plums have no pests, but I do prune annually on all trees, and thin the pears and especially the apples in May (to a single fruit per cluster). After this time I do spray with spinosad, alternating about every 10 days with oil on the apples and pears to control codling moth (spinosad is essentially 100% effective). The oil is for pearleaf blister mites on the pear and San Jose Scale on the apples. This regime is almost 100% effective on all these fruits and is organic. We have seen BMSB out here too, but mainly on one pear cultivar and the level of damage varies greatly year-to-year. This year there was very little damage. Feel fre to write with additional questions.

Codling Moth: https://pnwhandbooks.org/insect/tree-fruit/apple/apple-codling-moth
Apple Maggot: https://pnwhandbooks.org/insect/tree-fruit/apple/apple-apple-maggot
BMSB: https://pnwhandbooks.org/insect/tree-fruit/apple/apple-stink-bug
Pear- codling moth:https://pnwhandbooks.org/insect/tree-fruit/pear/pear-codling-moth
Neil Bell Replied February 17, 2021, 1:31 PM EST

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