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Post by coppice on May 11, 2011 7:59:38 GMT -5
Is caused by an easy to overlook little fly that lays its eggs on fruit which eats odd tunnels in apple, leaves them lumpy and unattractive. In 19th century orchards (it) was mostly overlooked because cider was the most often used means of storing apple.
But but, now I've got them and I wanna eat and store my apples! What do I do!!!
1., Clean culture. Prune trees so that you can actually get under trees and remove all brush, dropped fruit, stray suckers and fallen leaves. I mean each and every bit.
2., Traps. There is a product called tanglefoot. It is sticky and apple maggot-fly will adhere to it. Take any red ball bigger than a quarter pierce it with some wire so you can hang if from your tree (one per tree) and paint it with tanglefoot. Refresh tanglefoot X 2 per summer. Set your tanglefoot painted traps out after bloom drops.
3., Feed-water your tree. Each year, every year a 2" thick layer of bark mulch should cover the ground under your apple tree, out to its drip edge. Water when ever it gets drouthy. These two things are the only obvious things that should ever be underneath your apple tree.
Apple maggot rides fruit to the ground where it crawls out of fruit and nests-pupates in soil. Adult apple fly don't all grow up at the same time (or year). So this is practice your going to have to do each and every year. If you are really OCD about this, damaged fruit will decline to sustainable loss.
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Post by w8in4dave on May 11, 2011 8:12:25 GMT -5
I am going to give this info to a friend Thanks !!
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Post by coppice on May 13, 2011 6:00:43 GMT -5
W8in, I'm not finding tanglefoot in big-box stores... Expect its going to be a feed & farm store that aint a franchise monster...
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