North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Kevin Moore <aleguy33@yahoo.com>]

Bill, while I hesitate to recommend it, since I think it established itself in my yard so now I have no butterflies any more, but BT is safe to use around flowering strawberries, and should kill off any moth larvae around. I'm not familiar with coddling moth, and so I don't know if dusting with BT would actually kill it if the eggs are laid inside the fruit, but is relatively safe and seems to me better than nothing. Sorry to hear of your mycophobia, hope you can get over it if you ever have a chance to eat corn smut again. Because of its rarity it's actually a very valuable mushroom, along the lines of black truffle, though I don't know if it can successfully be cultivated the way truffles can.

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From: William C. Garthright <billg@inebraska.com>
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 7:55:23 AM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Spraying


> Sounds like coddling moth. The larvae eat out the center in and around the core then exit out the bottom barely leaving a mark. ... Those pears turn yellow and ripen earlier than normal. They are still edible (I cut them up before eating) but they don't have the best flavor compared to the others that ripen normally.
> 


Thanks, Steve! That fits the situation with my pears exactly. And yes,
parts of them are still edible, just rather bland and uninteresting.

Knowing the problem will be a BIG help. I'll get a coddling moth
pheromone trap next year, so that I can tell when spraying really needs
to be done.

Perhaps I can cover the strawberry plants temporarily, when I really
need to spray. This particular tree is very small. And I assume, from
the extensive damage, that the larvae had been in there awhile (that
they probably infested the fruit early in the summer).


> If some of your pears are still on the trees, they may be worm free.
> 


Unfortunately, the birds have recently pecked holes in most of those
that remain. It didn't occur to me that they might like Asian pears. I
don't know why, since they peck everything else that isn't netted.

Well, I guess I'll be buying another case of nets next year.

Thanks again,

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
Already we are in an era when no worthwhile skill is ever lost, if it
can draw the eye of some small corps of amateurs. Today there are more
expert flint-knappers than in the Paleolithic. More sword makers than
during the Middle Ages. - David Brin
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