barbara sargent wrote:
Hi Barbara
Oh they work all right, but if the codling on your apples is as bad as
you say you may need to spray as well for at least a couple of seasons.
The basic idea of the lures is not so much to kill off all the moths
(which they actually don't anyway) but to alert you to exactly when the
attack on your little apples is actually occurring.
What the lures do is to attract and kill many of the _male_ moths which
appear on the upper part of the tree canopy at the same time the females
are arriving to lay their eggs on the fruitlets.
When the lure starts to catch more than just the odd moth one should
spray the fruit with a suitable caterpillar killer. This will catch many
of the newly-hatched babies as they make ready to bore into a fruit.
A suitable ecologically-acceptable spray to use would be either Bt or
neem oil. We have been using the latter on a particularly-susceptible
tree about every second year for some time and can by this means keep
down the proportion of damaged fruits to around 10% of the crop which we
find quite acceptable.
As to the lures, one can get commercial ones if one prefers, which are
probably a bit more effective. They consist of a sort of plastic tent
with open ends on the floor of which one places a special sticky pad and
a little container of female pheremone (the stuff which brings the
"boys" flocking). The tent can be kept from year to year and
replacements bought for the pads and lures.
The home-made version also lures the moths by smell, but instead of
sticking them to a pad it drowns them in liquid.
What one wants to achieve is a trap which will neatly catch the rather
small codling moths but leave most other insects (especially bees) quite
unharmed.
The way we do this is to take a glass jam jar or other smallish
preserving jar and hang it in a coarse-meshed plastic net bag. Such
bags are qure often found here on the fruit counters as containers for
fruits such as kiwifruits or small mandarines. If nothing lke this is
available you would need to try and find a coarse netting (About 1/8
inch mesh I suppose). If you don't suffer from spring gales like we do
you might be able to use a plastic instead of a glass container, but in
our climate the extra weight can be quite important in keeping the
container right way up and the solution in place!
As to the solution which goes into the container, the amounts are not
very critical but one needs to put in the jar about one tablespoon of
dark treacle or molasses and an equal amount of vinegar. Fill the jar up
to about 2/3 with plain water. stir well and hang your jsr.
The lures need to be put out shortly after the blossoms have all fallen
and if you are using the home-made sort will need the waterlevel topped
up from time to time, especially if the weather is warm and dry.
If the trees are fairly close together one commercial trap will be
enough for about three trees, but with the home made ones (which I am
not sure are quite so effective) I prefer one per tree. Always hang them
as near to the top of the tree as you can conveiently manage as they
will catch more that way.
Whwn you have collected around ten males in your trap (They are dark
brown rather stubby little moths) you should give the tree a good spray.
You can continue to leave the traps in position as the more males you
catch the less chance there will be for stray females arriving later to
be fertilized and able to lay viable eggs.
As I presume you have a long warm summer you most probably have a second
major wave of attack from shortly after midsummer (you could get local
information about the likely timeing I am sure from some sort of
official advisor).
The commecial traps we can get here have a second pad and lure to use at
this time and you could clean out and recharge home-made traps similarly
so you can tell when to repeat the spraying..
I won't try to give any more detail, but depend on you to ask any
questions which occur to you which I will endeavour to answer usefully.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ. Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
Moira, do coddling moths bother any other fruit than apple?
Carol
Carol Jensen wrote:
Carol
We also get some in our pears, but they don't seem so keen on them as
the apples. Books also mention atacks on stone fruit and walnuts, but I
think these must be pretty rare.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ. Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
