Is it Worth it?
29-May-10
My apple tree is about 30′ tall. I don’t know what kind of apples they are, but I know they are delicious, (the adjective, not the cultivar). They are also perfect for baking. That is, after you’ve spent an hour doing surgery to cut out all the insect holes! I’ve searched all over the web for tips on how to prevent apple maggots that don’t involve spraying toxic chemicals on the tree. Unless I do something about this, 100% of my apples will be affected, and I don’t feel like doing any more surgery.
So far, it seems the only successful method of preventing damage to the apples is the “barrier method,” which consists of covering all your fruit with tiny nylon footies. Kinda comical, isn’t it? And another, rather obscure method is to hang up traps that consist of red apples covered in sticky Tanglefoot Trap. The idea is that the little flies will swarm to the ripe apples, rather than your precious unripe ones, and die trying to lay their eggs in it.
I spent all day initiating both of these methods. The footies look pretty funny up there in the tree, and there’s no way I can get to more than about 5% of my fruit. That’s the drawback of having a 30′ apple tree. Fortunately, there are probably several hundred apples up there, so I’ve “bagged” enough for my taste.
I made some mesh bag traps using supplies I bought for about $12 at Seattle Fabrics. It remains to be seen if my makeshift Red Delicious traps will do anything. But it was worth a shot!