Pests & diseases › Apple Maggot
Apple Maggot
Fly whose maggots tunnel through apples leaving brown trails. The lumpy, distorted apple problem.
Symptoms
- Small puncture marks on apple surface
- Brown winding trails inside the apple
- Distorted, lumpy fruit
- Premature drop
Lifecycle
Adults emerge June–August.
What to do
- Red sticky sphere traps hung in trees (8 per dwarf tree, more for full-size)
- Pick up and bag (not compost) all dropped fruit promptly
- Kaolin clay (Surround) sprayed weekly
If it's bad
- Spinosad
Stop it coming back
- Bag individual developing apples in nylon stockings or paper bags (works incredibly well)
- Sticky sphere traps from June
- Aggressive sanitation of dropped fruit
Crops it goes for
Plan the plot, track every sowing, cook the harvest
Sowing reminders and harvest forecasts for your own frost dates, the Seed Tin, Scan Centre for any label or packet, and the Potty Mouth Garden Club. Free to start.