To add to my last post... I have heard that milk cartons with a molasses mix will work for Codling moths, but will that alone rid me of the problem? I have also heard that hanging ripe apples covered in tanglefoot will be very helpful for maggots. Could anyone confirm this from experience? Thanks!

Forester:

I do not usually grow my apples organically, but for the sake of some of the fruit growing lectures I give, I have grown apples in plastic sandwich bags. This has worked well. I loose a few to deer that eat them out of the bag where they can reach. A few bags somehow have blown off, but so far very successful. You need to bag the fruit when dime sized or as soon after that as possible before they get damaged by insects.

This works well on small trees or if you just have a few trees. Since I have 22 trees, it would be tedious to bag them all. I resort to spraying for the most part for control.

Many orchardists hang red sticky ball traps in their orchards to monitor for apple maggot and then spray if necessary. Some actually use this method to control maggot but you will have to use enough sticky ball traps in each tree to successfully reduce the population. The traps are not expensive but it is cheaper to go to the store and buy some red delicious apples (they seem to be available year round these days). Use a wire coat hanger to thread thru the apple and then coat the apple with tanglefoot. Hang in the tree. When the apple gets too covered with insects or starts to rot, just put on a new apple. Use gloves as tanglefoot is so sticky is a real chore getting it off your hands!

As far as coddling moth, some do use pheromone ties to confuse the males so they do not find and mate with the females. Others just use a pheromone trap to trap the adults so they know when to spray for them.

Maggots are odd as they do seem to prefer some apple varieties over others. Those that have a heavy waxy skin seem less prone to them. Connell red has a very waxy skin. I find that Jonathan apples seem to call in the maggots for miles! I also noticed this as a young boy since I grew up on the remains of an old orchard that was most likely planted in the very early part of the 20th century. Many varieties were striped and nobody could identify them. Some were always full of maggot every year yet other varieties nearby never had maggot. None were sprayed so easy to notice that maggot seems to prefer certain varieties over others.

Should you wish to spray, I have found that Ortho Fruit,Flower and Vegetable insect killer containing Acetamiprid (.5%) works very well. I bought a bottle of it from Amazon and am impressed with the results. This does assume that you use the product at the right times when maggot and coddling moths are present.

In my area, maggots can be an issue late July thru August. Coddlings normally have 2 generations where I live. The first seems to hit in mid-late June (fruit usually aborts) and the second generation in August. It may be different in the area you live.

I used two Coddling moth traps last year on my apple tree, and they really worked. However, the squirrels got all these nice, clean organic apples :-(

spartanapples, thanks for the idea of using real red apples on wire smeared with tanglewqood! Will certainly try this method, and I already have tanglewood.

Consider raising some chickens and ducks? Seriously, that might be the easiest way to interrupt the lifecycle. Plus.. you know ducks are pretty hilarious to have around the yard.