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Worcester Apple Tree

romoliukromoliuk Posts: 5
in Fruit & veg
Hi All,
Is now the third year in a row that my apple tree is always full of apples but each one of them has got a worm inside. There is a large amount of apples on the floor. Last year it has been sprayed with copper sulphate, but even so, the problem is still there. Can someone help?

Posts

  • romoliukromoliuk Posts: 5

  • treehugger80treehugger80 Posts: 1,923
    the apples falling is normal, the tree is trying to reduce the number of apple so some are as viable as possible,
    the worm will most likely be codling moth, you can use grease bands to stop the adult female moths (that are wingless) from climbing the tree to lay the eggs and use a pheromone trap to catch the winged males
  • romoliukromoliuk Posts: 5
    Thank you for your help and advise treehugger80, I will try. When is the best time to apply the bands?
  • Joy*Joy* Posts: 571
    I never had any success with grease bands but horticultural grease which comes in a tub is a better bet. You can daub it on and get it into the texture of the bark to make a really solid barrier. Use it in late October. It might not be successful for codling moth but you could use traps for these. 
  • neilbradburnneilbradburn Posts: 142
    Hi,
    Not sure about the tub-based grease, but I used specialised grease that came in a cartridge on some 2 year old trees and it caused quite a bit of damage to the bark - even when applied through masking tape. I applied it to nearly 10 trees and at least 2 of them have lost major branches, within close monitoring of the others ongoing. I gather this shouldn't happen with more mature trees, but just wanted to suggest exercising a bit of caution :-(
    Kind regards.
  • purplerallimpurplerallim Posts: 5,287
    edited August 2019
    Looking at the life cycle of the codling moth, do we have a chance of stopping them?
    The eggs are on the ends of branches under the leaves, the caterpillars/grubs are either in the apples or crawling to the centre/base of tree to pupate depending on the humidity,  or the pupa  are there already waiting for said humidity to hatch and all the while the adults are flitting around laying more eggs. We haven't a chance.
  • steephillsteephill Posts: 2,841
    Attract birds to the tree with a bird feeder. Blue tits and great tits do a first class job of removing caterpillars from our apple trees. Even with a good seed supply they need and will search out caterpillars to feed their young.

    Copper sulphate is not used for insect control, it is used as an antifungal agent (Bordeaux mixture). In this case it doesn't seem to be needed so I would recommend discontinuing its use.
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