Apple Maggots

My family has four Apples trees in the Pacific NW (Puget Sound) from which we like to get apples for straight eating, applesauce, apple butter and limited baking. To control Apple maggots, my folks used to spray, but they banned the spray, and my mother (who did the spraying) has since essentially given up on controlling the bugs. The neighbors also have several trees. I have resorted to attempting to keep all of the apples picked up and feeding everything we don't use for preserves to my small goat herd. The goats can only eat so much, and I'm hard-put to keep up with 8 trees.

I've read the modern methods of apple maggot control...most of which are either incompatible with rain, or involve a very time intensive (putting nylon footies on each individual apple). Or cutting down all of the trees. Which we are not doing, these are great trees.

In the renegade farming movement, does anyone have suggestions on controlling these pests? Companion plants, whatever. We are losing 70-80% of the crop to bug damage. My goats can only eat so many. I'm a college student with limited funds... thanks in advance

You might try putting chickens in the orchard. That will help break the life cycle.

http://gardening.wsu.edu/library/tree002/tree002.htm

"After about 20-30 days in the fruit, the maggots drop to the ground where they bury themselves in the soil. There they change to the pupal stage and spend the rest of the winter. They emerge as adults from July through September. The adults must feed for a period of 7-10 days in order to reach sexual maturity. After this period, they are attracted to fruit, where they mate and the females lay eggs. There is one generation per year. The apple maggot fly is about l/4-3/8 inches long. It has a black abdomen. Females have four white bands on the abdomen. The smaller males have three bands. The wings are clear but are marked with black bands. The apple maggot is closely related to the walnut husk fly, cherry fruit fly, and other picture-wing flies, including the snowberry maggot, an extremely close "look-alike.' Because of their close resemblance to these insects, entomologists must dissect them to confirm their identity."

http://insects.ippc.orst.edu/pnw/insects?34RUST05.dat

"Other management strategies Regular inspection and removal of fruit from infested trees can greatly reduce apple maggot populations in backyards and commercial operations. At weekly intervals from early August to fruit harvest, pick up and destroy any fallen fruit, in order to prevent apple maggots from completing their larval development. With low fly populations, multiple, yellow rectangular sticky traps or red sticky spheres may be hung from each backyard tree, or from perimeter fruit trees to intercept and trap adult apple maggot flies. Traps need to be replaced, or the adhesive reapplied periodically (every 3 to 4 weeks), throughout the season from early August to September."

I pick up fallen fruit and put it in plastic barrels or bags. the larvae hatch but are prevented from reaching the ground and die in the bottom. the rotted apples stay there over winter and are added to the compost the following spring.

if placed on some containment that prevented soil contact, the collected apples could be used to provide larva for chickens

https://www.grainews.ca/2015/05/15/homemade-recipes-to-help-control-apple-maggots-and-ants/

has some recipes.  The idea is to do the critter in before it mates.  Maggots apparently feed for a few days after emergence

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The commercial maggot traps are round, and red.  Do they have to be round?  Would anything red do?  Spray fenceposts red, then spray with tanglefoot.  Do green apples get less maggot?

Some kits come with pheromones.  Comparison of effectiveness with and without the pheromone?

Anyone make their own tanglefoot?  I think I would start with a mix of molasses and glycerine.  molassses for sticky, glycerine to reduce evaporation.

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Put down tarps under the tree in early spring.  Tarps don't have to be solid, just fine enough mesh to prevent the fly from getting off the ground.  Row cover might be enough.  

Same idea in the fall may work to keep the larva from entering the soil.

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Put heavier tarps -- 5 of them, with 1 corner 4 feet up the tree and the other 3 staked down.  Apples that fall off the tree hit the tarp and roll to the edge.  The tarp keeps the larva from burrowing in.  You also will get a lot less bruising on your windfall.

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Keep a hungry pig in your orchard.  Fallen apples don't last long.

Great ideas! I especially like keeping the critters in the ground.  I have a small grouping of two Harralsons and a Spry. I covered the ground around them with cardboard covered with compost during a March thaw to prep for making fruit guilds. I may have stopped the larva with it, but I'm still going to use a very labor-intensive method of protecting the fruit this year.

I had no apples at all last year due to a late killing frost, but I've already gone out and pruned potential apples so the branches won't break (like one did in 2015). I was also pruning in anticipation of using pantyhose material soaked in kaolin clay to cover each small applet (about 1 inch diameter). It's supposed to be close to 100% effective. Because the cardboard laid down early may affect the population, it won't be a great test of the pantyhose/clay method, but it will still be interesting to see if and how it works.

No local places carried the clay so I had to resort to Amazon; arriving tomorrow. I'm supposed to soak the hose in the clay mixed with water and then let it dry before placing on the apples. But I don't see a reason why they couldn't go on moist and dry in the sun.

Great ideas. I have once again waited too long to address this. I've got fruit setting and already seeing a spot on some. I have tried to be diligent about clearing fallen apples the past two years but it always gets away from me. Hoping it's not too late as my two trees always have exceptional yields but every year, every single apple is ruined by a maggot burrow.

Is it too late to try the clay/hose? Going to google that, not sure how the hose gets secured to the apples, tying at both ends? Labor intensive for sure but if it's something I can still try at this point, it would be nice to enjoy all the apples one year!

Is it too late to try the clay/hose? Going to google that, not sure how the hose gets secured to the apples, tying at both ends?

I would go for it. I dumped a pound of kaolin clay into a kitchen wash tub, added a gross of pantyhose footies and put them on wet. I tied the end of the "footie" (they look like those things you put over your naked foot to try on shoes) by gathering both ends and stretching. It was messy, but so far things are looking good.

I ran out of footies, so I used plastic sandwich bags with a corner cut out. I slipped the baggie on the apple, with the shorter end of the closed bag near the stem and open end (drainage) pointing down. I stapled the baggie shut to prevent accidental opening. Ran out of baggies, too.

But this is a good thing because I now have one tree with all footies, one with a mix of footies and baggies and one without treatment.

Here is what I used last year....

Orchard Sox worked really well....its just nylons with the end sewn. Tie a knot at the top around the stem to keep out the earwigs too.
Sandwich bag worked okay...earwigs and spiders got in the cut corners.
Party favour bags...again worked really well.  No scab, no maggots, occasional wiley earwig.

Its almost time to put them on! I foliar spray my leaves with BT and horticultural oil. and fish kelp fertilizer and thats about it.

UPDATE on plastic sandwich bags: three bagged applets tore off the tree during high winds (40mph gusts). Everything else looks okay.

I have had really good success with spraying clay. Huge reduction in burrows. I also hang sticky red signal apples. I catch a couple but I think thr clay works better.

Bill Peregrine wrote:I have had really good success with spraying clay. Huge reduction in burrows. I also hang sticky red signal apples. I catch a couple but I think thr clay works better.

Welcome to permies, Bill!  Come around and get to know us!  We're nice!

Kaolin clay seems to be the go-to for a lot of apple growers now. I started using it on my trees a couple of seasons ago and the difference is noticeable, way fewer damaged fruit than the years I relied on just traps alone. The reapplication after rain is the annoying part but it beats bagging individual apples by a long stretch.

The way we got around the bagging labour issue is drawstrings.  About a cm into the fabric.  A long (3 inch) needle helps I think.  DON'T tie the strings in a knot at all, just use them to cinch it up.


Yes, there's an initial effort of stringing the bags, but ultimately even the ones I did with knitting wool lasted 2 to 3 seasons, and I can personally do a bag every 10-15 seconds.