The major pests which fruit growers worry about in the summer are apple maggot, European red mite, oriental fruit moth and codling moth. During the summer I actively scout for these pests and report my finding on the Fruit Code-A-Phone (657-6380). I try to update this recording twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday at about noon. In my Code-A-Phone message I try to review all the major pests which need control at that time. I also maintain a several web pages at the Van Buren County Extension Web site so the growers can review what pests are out and other articles of interest.

Apple maggot is a small fly that overwinters in the ground and emerges around the first of July, usually after a rain of more than a quarter inch. The fly flies around the orchard for about 10 days. Then the female begins to look for places to lay its eggs. It flies to an apple and there the male flies are waiting to mate with the female. The female will lay her eggs inside the skin of the apple. Because the egg is laid inside the fruit, the only opportunity we have to control this pest is to kill the adult fly with a pesticide. When the flies first emerge they are attracted to yellow. We use a yellow sheet of paper or plastic covered with a sticky substance to attract the fly. Yellow attracts a lot of insects so these sticky boards quickly get covered with insects. We then examine the sticky board for picture wing fruit flies. These are flies which are similar to house flies in body form. Picture wing fruit flies are about half the size of houseflies. They are called picture wing fruit flies because they have black patterns on their wings. We then examine the pattern of clear and black on the wing to identify which fly we have. Here in Michigan we have almost a dozen picture wing flies and some of them are beneficial insects which attach weeds. Once we catch the apple maggot fly on a yellow sticky trap, we have ten days to apply an insecticide to kill the adults before egg laying begins. Organic fruit growers in the eastern United States use red ball traps to trap the adults when they are ready to lay their eggs. They use 4 or more red ball traps per tree and usually lose about one third of the fruit to maggots. Fruit invested with apple maggot is usually lumpy and misshapen. Brown tracks can often be seen in the flesh of severely infested fruit. Blueberry maggot and cherry fruit fly are 2 closely related pests with life cycles similar to apple maggot.

European red mites are tiny little relatives of spiders, which suck the sap out of the tree leaves. They overwinter on the tree as small red eggs. Fruit Growers can use dormant oils on the trees as they begin growth in the spring. The oil suffocates the eggs as they get ready to hatch. Oil was a very effective tool and usually gave good control of mites. Some mites always escaped and mite populations would build on the tree. On susceptible varieties, the mites would build to levels that will injury the trees. The visual symptom is a 'bronzing' of the leaves. Mites live short lives of one to two weeks depending on the temperature and produce lots of eggs. This allows the populations to very high levels quickly and because there are so many of them mites rapidly develop resistance to insecticides. Commercially we try not to use pesticides that are hard on mite predators such as Sevin, Lannate and pyrethroids. This is the same strategy that homeowners should use, because there are no effective treatments they can use. Commercially, we have a new miticide call Pyramite that is very effective. Growers should monitor their orchards for mite numbers and apply controls when the number of mites is an average of 5 mites per leaf.

Oriental fruit moth and codling moth is the worms in the apple that everyone talks about. These moths attacks apple fruit and are pests of other fruit such as peaches, pears and walnuts. In Michigan there are 3 to 4 generations of oriental fruit moth and 2 or 3 generations of codling moth per year. The first generation of oriental fruit moth attacks growing shoot tips before bloom The first generation of codling moth attacks the fruit soon after bloom. These two pests alternate flights throught the summer so that every 2 or 3 weeks a different generation of pests emerge. Insects are cold blooded and their development is related to temperature. The higher the temperature the faster the insect develops. In warm seasons we sometimes have a third or suicide generation of codling moths which comes out in early September. This will probably happen this year as well because of our early spring. This means that growers and home owners will probably be spraying after Labor Day. Oriental fruit moth is always a problem late in the season before harvest.Most growers listen to my Code-A-Phone to know if they need more sprays late in the season..