Keeping Pests Away from Your Fruit Trees
Keeping Pests Away from Your Fruit Trees
If you grow your own fruit trees, you know what an enormous commitment it is. It takes money, time, and dedication to create trees that can bear you fruit for the years to come.
Since it takes such hard work, you are going to want to make sure that these trees are well-protected from pests and disease. Now, while there isn’t one proven method for handling this problem, there are a few excellent solutions. Let’s take a look at the best options for fruit tree pest control.
Natural Pest Control for Your Fruit Trees
If you would like to try handling your fruit tree pest control without spraying your entire home orchard, here are some more organic solutions. Not everyone wants to use pesticides on their crops, so it’s nice to have a variety of choices.
Bagging
The first option on our list is bagging. We recommend this option for pests that like to burrow into fruit.
Bagging is especially useful for apple trees – apple maggots can be a serious problem for these. It’s also a very helpful technique for European pears (Pyrus communis) and codling moth worms.
The process basically involves sealing individual pieces of immature fruit into paper bags, which you then remove a couple of weeks later to allow it to develop its color. Ideally, this would be done immediately after the trees naturally drop a portion of its younger fruit.
Sticky Traps
Next up, let’s discuss using sticky traps to get rid of your fruit tree pests.
Sticky traps will attract bugs with bright, vibrant colors, and once they land, they become stuck. It’s easy to install and clean up and doesn’t involve any pesticides or sprays.
Removing the Pests Altogether
Our final solution without resorting to sprays is simply to remove the pests altogether.
How you do this really depends on the type of pests you are dealing with. For example, aphids can be taken off of your fruit trees with a strong stream of water from a hose.
Spraying Your Fruit Trees to Avoid Pests
There are a lot of different options when it comes to sprays for your fruit trees. These include chemical pesticides, oils, and microbial agents.
Oils do a great job of suffocating insects, as well as their larvae and eggs. Dormant oil should be sprayed right before new growth starts to show up on fruit trees in the spring, this will help avoid damaging the young shoots and leaves. However, if you are using horticultural oil, neem oil, summer, and ultrafine oils, these can be applied later in the growing season.
If the temperatures are above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, don’t apply oil, as it could damage your trees.
Microbial agents introduce microscopic organisms that are harmful to the pests on your fruit trees, but won’t cause any damage to humans.
Lastly, there are a variety of pesticides that are available to control pests on your trees. Some of these include carbaryl, acetamiprid, imidacloprid, and permethrin.
Acetamiprid is ideal for controlling:
-aphids
-leaf miners
-leafhoppers
-apple maggots
-codling moths
-plum curculio
Carbaryl is perfect for:
-caterpillars
-beetles
-predatory mites
Esfenvalerate and permethrin are good for controlling a variety of different pests, but can also be harmful to honeybees. To avoid harming bees, spray the pesticides around dusk.
Imidacloprid is used to control borers by being applied at the base of both apple and pear trees.
Our Final Thoughts on Keeping Pests Away from Your Fruit Trees
We hope that you were able to use this information to remove pests from your fruit trees. If you find that you need additional professional help to get started, contact your local landscaping service.
If you are in the San Mateo or San Francisco Bay Area, contact Arborist Now for your pest control needs. Contact us today for more information!
