Re: Nashi Pear
Dana Drennan wrote:
>
>
> Unfortunately, the codling moth problem has gotten so bad that this year,
> 75-80% of the fruit had larva and had to be put in the trash. Since I
> refuse to spray and the non-spray methods of control have simply not been
> sufficient, I have been thinking of having the tree removed. However, one
> of my friends who grows several European pear varieties told me that in
> her orchard she had a couple varieties that had also been very heavily
> attacked by codling moth this year. So, I'm torn as I do like the fruit
> very much. I may leave the tree for another year and hope that this year
> was just worse than usual.
>
Dana
I wonder if your refusal to spray is absolute or just a refusal to use
environmentally-damaging materials.
We also prefer not to spray at all had got pretty desperate over the
codlings on one particular apple tree, which had ended up giving us no
more than 5% sound fruit, so in desperation we sprayed with Neem oil
once when we were pretty sure from checking pheremone traps that the
egg-laying season was getting under way. This would possibly have killed
eggs, and certainly the newly-emerged caterpillars, without harming
anything else (including us). Bt is difficult to get here, or we could
just as well have used it instead with similar results. Anyway, we did
just that one spraying in late spring and another in late summer (to
catch the second brood) and presto! around 95% lovely clean fruit.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata,
New Zealand (astride the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
