| Will Homedepot have a product available to stop fruit flies and other small pests from entering apples. Someone told me that the product is called a |
| Apples can be affected by apple maggots, which tunnel throughout the flesh of the apple. These worms are the larvae of a sawfly, which are pretty hard to hit with an insecticide because they are so mobile. A good way of dealing with these pests is to hang sticky traps in your trees. You can purchase these traps or make your own. Here's what I do: use red rubber balls or red plastic Christmas ornaments (both look like red apples which is what attracts the sawflies), stick metal hangers or pipe cleaners into them so you can hang them from the branches of your tree, then smear them with TangleFoot (available at garden centers) or petroleum jelly, and then hang them in your tree. Late June and early July is when the sawflies are most active so be sure to place the traps on the branches by then. While you won't stop all of the damage to your apples, you will stop most of it by trapping the sawflies. |
