Posts Tagged: codling moth
Don't Let Codling Moths Ruin Your Apples
If you have apple or pear trees in your home orchard, you are no doubt familiar with codling moths....
New $1 million research project to test mating disruption for pest control in walnuts
The Community Alliance with Family Farmers and UC Cooperative Extension are working with farmers to establish six demonstration sites in walnut orchards that will examine the effectiveness of mating disruption to control two major pests of the crop – codling moth and navel orangeworm.
The three-year research effort is funded with a $1 million award from the California Department of Agriculture Biologically Integrated Farming Systems program.
“The project sites will be in the Sacramento and northern San Joaquin Valleys, but we expect the demonstration to be of interest to walnut farmers across the state,” said Sara Tiffany, CAFF director of ecological farming and the project lead. “Farmers who grow related crops, like almonds and pistachios, will also be able to benefit from the findings.”
“Farmers need alternatives. In this project, we will be studying the effectiveness of alternatives that already exist,” said Jhalendra Rijal, UC Cooperative Extension integrated pest management advisor for San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced counties, the lead scientist on the project. The California Walnut Board is also part of the project team.
Six farmers will be recruited to enroll at least 80 acres each in the demonstrations – three farmers in the Sacramento Valley and three in the northern San Joaquin Valley. The entire acreage will be managed following UC IPM guidelines for walnut production, including cover crops, reduced risk pesticide options and biological control.
Forty acres will be treated with commercially available mating disruption products, while the other 40 acres will not. The treatment works by confusing the pests. Codling moth and navel orangeworm moths naturally release pheromones that help them find mates. The female lays eggs in the immature nuts, and when they hatch, the larvae feed on the nuts, rendering them unmarketable. In the treated area, the orchards will be flooded with a synthetic pheromone that makes it much more difficult for male and female pests to hone in on one another.
Besides codling moth and navel orangeworm, the project will systematically look at the effects of cover crops and predatory mite release on pest mite populations, and improvement in other natural enemy populations in walnut orchards.
The results of the IPM practices will be shared widely with growers, pest control advisors and certified crop consultants in articles, meetings and field days.
“Currently the use of mating disruption in walnuts is significantly lower than in almonds,” said Rijal, who is also the associate director for Agricultural IPM with the UC Statewide IPM Program. “We believe when farmers see the results of using mating disruption, along with other sustainable walnut production practices, we will improve the adoption rate.”
The Bag Lady
I love apples…crisp and juicy, sweet and tart, green or red. I eat one daily,...
Worms in Your Apples, Pears, Walnuts Last Year?
Advice for the Home Gardener from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County
Client's Request (via phone message) Last year my apple tree was seriously impacted by codling moths. I understand that there are routines timed to the hatching of the moth that a home gardener can follow to minimize, maybe even eliminate, damage to the apples. Can you advise me on those routines.
MG Help Desk Response: Thank you for your call to the UC Master Gardener Program Help Desk. Your message indicated you are looking for information on the hatching timing for codling moths in your area.
In cooler areas (e.g., west Contra Costa County), look for first stings in early to mid-May and stings from a second generation mid-July to mid-August. In warmer areas (inland Contra Costa County) start looking for first stings by mid-April. Inland, there may be as many as 3 generations hatching through the summer, all requiring treatment.
To use the calculator, you will need to know the date of when moths are found in your traps and sunset temperatures have reached 62 degrees. This date is known as the biofix date. When asked to select a UC CIMIS weather station, choose the one of five in Contra Costa County that is closest to you. That will produce a chart with expected degree days for the time period you specified and recommendations for degree-day accumulations for each spraying.
For more information on codling moths and their control, see this UC document: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7412.html. For a calendar of gardening operations for apples: http://homeorchard.ucanr.edu/Fruits_&_Nuts/Apple/.
Please let us know if you have further questions.
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (SEH)
Don't miss our 2017 Great Tomato Plant Sale:
http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/EdibleGardening/GreatTomatoPlantSale/
Note: The UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (//ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).
Worms in Your Apples and Pears Last Year?
Most Likely From Codling Moths...
Now is the Time to Get Ready to Fend Them Off ORGANICALLY!
Advice from the UC Master Gardener Program's Help Desk Client's Question:
UCMGCC Program's Help Desk's Response:
You most likely have codling moths. By the time you see the damage, typically at harvest, it is too late to protect that year's crop - your preventative tactics need to take place now, in the spring.
Codling moth is a common and serious pest in Contra Costa County's home-grown apples, pears, and even in walnuts, but calls received at the UC Master Gardener Program's Help Desk are almost always about apples and pears. And those are not really worms, either, but rather caterpillars, a common term for the larvae of butterflies and moths.
Cydia pomonella
Traps:
Information on a home-made codling moth bait trap can also be found on UC MGCC Program's web site at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/files/48135.pdf.
Sanitation:
Sanitation should be an integral part of any codling moth control program. Beginning about six to eight weeks after bloom, start checking fruit for sawdust-like filled holes (larvae entry holes in the fruit). Check every week or two and remove the infested fruit from the tree and the ground. Dispose of it in your yard waste, not your compost pile.
Sanitation and trapping may be all that is needed when you have an isolated tree and low codling moth populations. But, if populations have been allowed to build up over a number of years (or your neighbors haven't managed their trees) you may need a more aggressive approach to achieve satisfactory control (and maybe your neighbor's cooperation). For even more information on aggressive management of codling moths, including even more organic and/or non-chemical actions, go to the UC IPM Online--Statewide Integrated Pest Management website: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7412.html
Good luck on "worm" free apples and pears this year.
Contra Costa Master Gardeners Help Desk
This Help Desk response was originally written by Emma Connery for publication in the Contra Costa Times in February 2010. It was originally posted on the blog in March 2015. Because of the numerous questions about Codling Moth at the Help Desk, it has been reposted again this year as a reminder It has been updated for the blog and any errors are the responsibility of the current HOrT COCO blog editor.
Note: The UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (//ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).