If you spray with Imidan and the Triazicide, it's likely that the egg laid in the fruit will die upon hatching. That is what happens with mine. Yes, the fruit will still have the scar, but when mature, it's just a tiny brown mark that is a cosmetic defect but shouldn't be of any concern to a backyard grower.

Neonicotinoids are also systematics...meaning it will kill the egg inside. They are also tough on bees, so keep it away from any flowers (as you should any pesticide).

One thing about apples. *IF* the apple doesn't fall from the tree, the PC will die. The apple growth is fast and it will crush the larvae inside. I had quite a few apples last year that had been hit by PC, yet I was able to harvest, worm free. The same thing with pears. I'm tempted to not even spray my apples this year and see how they come out on the other end.

Even with my use of Surround I find most apples with PC marks come out pretty well. What I do is thin them if they start looking deformed as the season progresses, the deformed shape means the PC made it further in. This year I am finding very few PC that actually made tracks, the cold weather seems to have been bad for hatch. Plums on the other hand are almost always infested if there is a PC "smile" on them.

Scott

I often see round PC scars on mature fruit, just cut away when peeling. As I understand it, apple fruits grow so fast that they kill the larvae, leaving the bump/wound.

Wish other apple pests were as easy to accept.

Triazicide is a central nervous system disruptor (I don't know if that's the official name but that's the gist of it).
If you have sprayed 3 times so far in zone 5 you were surely covered or you've been spraying too much. I spray about every 3 weeks.
I find they can still make marks with Triazicide but most don't take.

Last year was the first year I really got hit hard with PC as a person who just bags his apples. During thinning, 80% of the fruit was hit across 3 trees and I lost a lot. Also, my peaches got hit with something as well as sour cherries.

This year, I did one spray with triazicide and have thinned and bagged around 300 apples with only 5 showing PC marks. And no activity on the peaches which I will spray with surround if the rain every stops.

Nothing has ever bothered my Asian Pears. I'm tempted to just leave them be this year and not both bagging them.

Sharppa,

I did not spray or footsie my Asian pears at all last year or the year before that because I thought they were safe. I only bagged my apples and put surround-soaked footsies on peaches. Turned out, I found many crescent scars on many pears but when cut open, nothing inside. Those bugs probably and finally "discovered" that there were pears in my yard, too.

This year, I sprayed Triazicide once. If bug pressure is heavy, I may spray one more time. Otherwise, I will bag apples and footsie pears and peaches for protection. I try to minimize spraying when possible.

Do you use "apple maggot bags" (nylon stocking type) on your peaches soaked in Surround? I tried the cotton drawstring bags last year but they really did not work. Do the bags hold the surround better than just spraying surround on the tree?

Do the squirrels like stealing them any less with the footies? :-(

Thanks for the info.

Planatus, if you have lots of PCs the apples end up useless, multiple bites deforms the fruit so much that the flesh does not adequately mature so it will not taste very good. Thats why I thin out any deformed fruits. The majority of my PC scars are either just feeding wounds or are failed hatches, those have no effect on the taste.

Sharp, you are the second person I heard who did not have good luck with the cotton drawstring bags. They always worked well for me, maybe it was something else I was doing that made it work. I always used them with spinosad sprays so maybe that was the reason.

Scott

Sharp,

Yes, the nylon stocking is also known as footsie. I have both kinds, the plain white ones and the ones that pre-soaked with Surround. I bought them at Home Orchard Society.

I am currently too lazy to spray Surround so I used the pre-soaked Surround footsies instead. I only used them on peaches with a good result. I used the plain ones on a few pears. It's OK. I don't use them on apples. I use plastic bags on apples. So far, squirrels have not touched any fruits in bags or footsies. But don't be fool, others have reported that their squirrels took their fruits, bags and all.

I have plenty of hits on my apples today. I'll just make sure (like i always do) to pick up all the drops and toss them in the garbage.

Looking at my notes from last year, exactly on this date the apples were flowering and, based on degree days, no curculios were expected, so I hadn't sprayed. But the aprium had a nice set of little fruitlets. The temp hit 90 degrees, the curcs swarmed the aprium and got most of them. There was nothing else to get.