2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The baby apple moth is an extremely funny pest, found mainly in the steppe and forest-steppe zones. It is especially numerous in the southern regions. It harms mainly apple trees, but sometimes other fruit crops can also suffer from its invasions. If the number of these harmful parasites in the garden is especially large, the yield may drop by up to 60% or even more
Meet the pest
The baby apple moth is a butterfly with a wingspan of about 4 - 5 mm. The front wings of the pests are characterized by a dark brown, almost black color with transverse silvery-white stripes running in the middle. There is also a fancy dark gray fringe on the front wings. The narrow hind-wings have a rather long fringe and are painted in dark gray tones. The antennae, heads, tummies and breasts of pests have exactly the same color.
Semitransparent hemispherical eggs of parasites reach 0.2 mm in size. Newly hatched caterpillars are usually transparent, with a slight pale greenish tinge. And matured shiny yellow caterpillars grow up to 4 - 5 mm in length and are endowed with tiny brownish heads. Pupae, the size of which is in the range from 2 to 2.5 mm, are initially colored green, and somewhat later acquire a dark brown color. The color of the cocoons also changes - at first they are lemon yellow, and then they turn brown.
Pupae overwinter in plant debris and in the surface soil layer in cocoons formed by them. Butterfly years start five to seven days after the average daily air temperature reaches ten degrees. As a rule, this period coincides with the phenophase of outcropping of inflorescences in winter apple trees. In time, the flight of butterflies is quite stretched and takes from forty to fifty days. The emerged butterflies do not feed, but as soon as the air temperature reaches sixteen to seventeen degrees and the first leaves begin to appear, the females begin to lay eggs, sticking them on the leaves from the lower sides (usually on the lower tiers of tree crowns). The total fertility of pests is from fifty to sixty eggs. Males usually live from four to seven days, and females from eight to twelve.
The development of the eggs of the baby apple moth is kept within one and a half to two weeks in the spring, and in five to eight days in the summer. Caterpillars hatched from them gnaw chorions at the places of leaf attachment and immediately make their way into the leaves, feeding on their internal tissues and without violating the integrity of the epidermis. All caterpillars form rather twisting mines from two to five centimeters long. From about half the length, such mines expand noticeably.
In the spring, the development of caterpillars takes from sixteen to twenty days, and in the summer - from thirteen to sixteen. During this time, all individuals have time to shed twice. When their feeding is complete, caterpillars leave the mines and, falling to the soil, go deeper into the ground or under the remains of plants. There they form cocoons, in which they stay in the state of pronymph for about four days. And after this time, harmful parasites pupate. Approximately 12 - 23 days later, just before the emergence of butterflies, more than half of the pupae protrude from the cocoons. In general, the development of the baby apple moth takes place in three generations. The development of the first generation usually takes from 40 to 50 days, and the development of the subsequent ones - from 36 to 39 days. Caterpillars of the last generation that did not have time to complete their development before the cold weather often perishes.
How to fight
Before budding begins, in order to protect against the baby apple moth, fruit trees are sprayed with insecticides. And against hatching caterpillars, eradicating treatments are carried out throughout the summer season.
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