Are you hungry enough to beat the pests to your fruit?
Each season, we dream of luscious apples without worm holes, cherries that never have maggots and peach trees that are not dying from borer damage.
Unfortunately, beating the pests is not easy.
Fruit trees are long-term perennial crops. That removes one very important pest control option of crop rotation. You are committed to growing the same plant in the same place for many years.
To put it into simple terms, the pests find your trees and they start eating them.
You cannot change crops nor can you move the plants around. You generally cannot cover them with nets or screens to keep out the pests.
The plants are large, so spraying them is often difficult.
Let's face it. Fruit is often one of the more difficult plants on which to control pests.
The first thing to do is to determine what the pest is going to do. Some pests destroy the fruit so, if your tree has no fruit because it is young or the fruit froze, you may not need to control those pests.
Other pests can kill the trees, so you need to prevent them from damaging your trees each year.
Wormy apples are always a problem. The culprit is the codling moth that attacks apples and pears throughout the world. The moth lays its eggs on the skin of the apple, and when the egg hatches, it burrows into the fruit and feeds there.
Eventually, the worm matures, burrows out of the apple, pupates and turns into another adult moth, which starts the process over again.
To control the insect, you have to prevent the worm from entering the fruit. One strategy is to bag the fruit so the worms cannot get to it.
Unsprayed apples usually have 90 percent chance of producing wormy fruit.
Another approach is to cover the fruit with a barrier or desiccant to keep the eggs from hatching or to destroy the larvae. One such strategy is to cover the fruit with a kaolin clay spray.
Conventional controls require spraying the fruit before the moths lay their eggs. The eggs hatch, the tiny worms contact the insecticide and then they die before entering the fruit. That requires precise spray timing and good coverage to control this pest.
The best source for pest control information and treatment timing is utahpests.usu.edu. This service of Utah State University Extension Service will help you raise quality fruit with a minimum of pesticide applications.
Wormy cherries are another serious problem. In this case, the adult is a picture wing fly, meaning that the wings have patterns on them. This pest came to Utah in the late '70s or early '80s. It now infests almost all cherry-growing areas in the state.
This fly lays its eggs inside the fruit, so you have to kill the female fly before it lays its eggs. That means getting the neighborhood to spray at the same time so you don't scare the flies from one tree to another.
When it lays its eggs, the fly marks each cherry, so virtually every cherry has a worm. Control is difficult because trees can be very large and difficult for a homeowner to spray. Start spraying for this pest when the fruit turns from green to straw yellow.
While it is not appetizing, eating the worms will not hurt you. Since birds are likely going to attack the fruit, you might want to net your trees. However, most netting is too large and the flies can get through it. Use finer netting over a small tree or some branches to prevent the flies from laying the eggs.
Another pest that is becoming more difficult is the European paper wasp.
They resemble yellow jackets but are not attracted to yellow jacket traps. Net the fruit to prevent serious damage. They attack any ripening fruit including peaches, cherries, berries and grapes.
One life-threatening pest of stone trees is the greater peach tree borer. This clear winged moth lays its eggs around the base of the stone fruit trees starting in July.
Preventive treatments include keeping the trees healthy and preventing damage to the trunks. Preventative treatments are needed to keep the borers from killing your trees.
Aphids are likely to be troublesome as they appear before their natural enemies. They suck out the plant sap and curl the leaves.
Wash aphids off the plant. Insecticidal soaps are also less toxic, yet effective controls. Avoid unnecessary sprays as that kills the predatory insects that keep the pest under control.
While there are many other insects, diseases and other pests that will attack your fruit crops, they are not all a problem in every orchard every season. Learn what the potential pests are and then control them only if they are causing problems.
Larry A. Sagers is a horticulture specialist for the Utah State University Extension Service at Thanksgiving Point.