Kitchen Garden Forum

Once again I've had a reasonable crop of Bramleys, but most have been 'bored' by some bug that I've never been able to find. Not too much damage but I'd like to stop it if possibe. Are we talking grease bands, put on the tree about now, or spraying, or what? Thanks for advice.

I suspect you can't find the culprit because it was leaving through the hole.

http://apples.hdc.org.uk/codling-moth.asp

I do find the grease bands (put around the trunk and also around any support as well, around September/October I think) plus the codling moth traps in Spring works really well. In fact this year, I forgot to replace the pheromone lure with the second one (the kit comes with 2 lures, the first to be placed in the trap in May and the second around the end of June I think if I remember correctly), and I got hit with a lot more codling moth damage this year than I've ever had. Not every apple is affected thankfully, but quite a few are. So I would say in my experience the grease bands and the traps do actually work.

I've never used any traps for codling moth and don't usually notice much if any damage, but have noticed more damaged apples this year, so perhaps it's just a good (or bad from our point of view) year for them.