Apple moth – description, signs of appearance, methods of struggle
Apple moth is a dangerous pest of apple trees, food specialization – apple tree, but sometimes it can feed on pear or other seed species.
Apple moth (Hyponomeuta malinella L.) is a dangerous insect for apple trees. In the case of a wide distribution of apple moths, yield losses reach 70%, sometimes even in the middle of summer, trees can be completely left without leaves. Moreover, the consequences of this can be felt even next year – the ovary falls off, fruit buds are not laid, they either do not bear fruit at all, or have a very poor harvest next year.
Apple moth can be recognized by the following signs – butterflies with a wingspan of 18-20 mm with a silky sheen. The forewings are silvery-white with three longitudinal rows of black spots, the hind wings are ash-gray with light fringes. There are four black dots on the foreback, which make them easy to distinguish from other species of butterflies.
. . . . 
An extremely prolific insect – in early June, the female lays eggs in bunches of 20-60 eggs on 2-3-year-old smooth shoots. They are covered with mucus secreted from the gonads of a rapidly drying female, yellow, oval in shape. After three weeks, a young caterpillar emerges from the eggs – yellowish with a dark brown head and remains for the winter, eating the chorion of eggs and crunching the bark underneath. In the spring, when the buds have blossomed, they begin to eat the pulp of young leaves and make moves-mines in them, while they move from one leaf to another. Affected leaves turn brown, dry out and fall off. During the flowering period of the apple tree, the caterpillar lives in groups that eat leaves, leaving only veins that are braided with cobwebs. Having thus destroyed one branch, they move on to the next. There can be up to 1000 caterpillars in one group, sometimes they envelop the entire apple tree with cobwebs.
See also:ORCHIDS – ORCHID CARE
The development of the apple moth continues for one generation. A favorable prerequisite for its reproduction is a dry spring. Economic threshold of harmfulness for apple moths in the phase of flowering completion with 0.5-1 egg laying per tree or with damage to 10-25% of leaves.
Apple moth control measures
In the spring, you should manually collect twigs with pest nests and destroy them. The use of biological products is allowed at the stage of the caterpillars’ exit from under the shields, as well as after flowering.
Also, during the period of the caterpillars coming out from under the shields, you can spray the trees with one of the following insecticides: Karate Zeon 050 s.k. — 0.4-0.5 l/ha, Pirinex Super k.e. 1.0 — 1.5 l/ha. Immediately after flowering, the procedure should be repeated.
