Codling moth

What you see

The moth is grey, 8 mm, and rarely seen. The sign is a single hole in the fruit, often near the eye, ringed with brown crumbly frass.

Damage

One clean entry hole with frass at the rim. Cut the apple and you find a tunnel to the core and a pinkish-white caterpillar with a brown head. Fruit ripens and falls early.

Lifecycle on this coast

One or two generations. Overwinters as a cocooned larva under loose bark and in crevices, which is where corrugated-cardboard trunk bands catch them.

When to act

Hang a pheromone trap in May. Sustained catches mean protective action; occasional catches on a garden tree are tolerable.

Months: May, June, July, August

Plants it bothers

Apple, Pear, Quince, Walnut

Natural enemies

Blue tit, Bat, Trichogramma parasitic wasp, Earwig

Remedies

Pheromone traps, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), Grease bands, Encourage predators

The thing people get wrong

Tie a band of corrugated cardboard round the trunk in July, ridged side inward. Wandering larvae crawl in to pupate and you simply remove and burn the band in autumn - a free, chemical-free trap that takes out a large slice of next year's population.