Codling moth: how to recognise and treat it

Pest

Codling moth — Photo: Simon Winkley & Ken Walker, Museum Victoria, CC BY 3.0 au, Wikimedia Commons

Symptoms

A hole in the side or the eye end of the fruit, often plugged with reddish-brown crumbly droppings.
A tunnel running to the core, where a whitish-pink caterpillar with a dark head feeds.
Tiny mounds of reddish-brown droppings on young fruit where the caterpillar entered.
Infested fruit ripens early and falls.

Organic treatment

Pick off infested fruit weekly and rake up fallen fruit as soon as it drops.
Spray codling moth granulosis virus every 7 days after egg hatch, 3–4 times per generation.
In September–October, after the caterpillars leave the fruit, spray insect-killing nematodes on the trunk, branches and soil.

Chemical treatment

Spinosad every 10 days after egg hatch, about 3 times per generation; follow the label dose and pre-harvest interval.

Reference information, not a guarantee. Read and follow the label of any product: dose, safety and the days to wait before harvest.

Prevention

Thin fruit at marble size (1.3–2 cm) to one fruit per cluster, at least 15 cm apart.
Bag the fruit 4–6 weeks after bloom, when it is 1.5–2.5 cm across.
Hang pheromone traps in May to see when the moths fly and time the sprays.
Encourage birds, wasps and ground beetles that eat the caterpillars.

Plants it affects

Sources

Figures checked against these sources.