Apple codling moth and its relatives

If in our garden we are not happy that the moth begins to host on our trees, then what can we say about the industrial plantations of fruit trees. After all, a worm apple is bad not only by the loss of its presentation, but also by the fact that such fruits will not be stored for very long, and this is a direct loss for fruit farms.

In addition to the apple pest, there are other types of moths, for example:

• pear;
• plum;
• Cherry
• nutty;
• pea;
• soya;
• and many others.

We begin with a detailed description of the codling moth butterfly, as the most characteristic pest found in orchards practically throughout the vast territory of our vast country. In addition, it is this type of pest that has been most studied at present, so the information on it is the most comprehensive.

Apple moth

Pest Description

Apple moth belongs to the genus Zidium from leaflet families. This is a nocturnal butterfly of gray with a brown tint. If an electric lamp is lit in the garden at night, then after a while several individuals of this family of insects will fly into its light.

Many people tend to romanticize these night moths, sometimes touching when contemplating the picture of butterflies fluttering near the lantern. But experienced gardeners know the true price of such a romantic affection, especially when they begin to calculate losses from crop losses.

The size of insects is indeed small, the moths look almost like moths. The size of the wingspan rarely exceeds twenty millimeters.

Adult insect lifestyle

Years of butterflies begin after the end of flowering gardens and lasts a rather long time: from a month to a half. This mainly happens on quiet evenings in early summer. Departure takes place in the second decade after the apple trees blossom.

The air temperature at which oviposition occurs at this time is kept at a level of 15-18 degrees in the evening. The absence of wind and rainfall allows females to lay eggs in several stages. Initially, oviposition is arranged on the leaves of the apple tree on the upper side, and as the fruit sets and grows, it grows on young apples.

Attention! Apple moth affects not only apples, but also other fruit trees, such as pears or plums!

Pest development

The moth development cycle includes all stages for the insect with complete transformation. Therefore, the phases of her life are similar to those of other insects:

• egg;
• larva or caterpillar;
• pupa;
• adult or adult insect.

An egg of the codling moth, white with a greenish tint, is about one millimeter in diameter, and often a person simply does not notice it with the naked eye, therefore, does not take measures to combat them, considering that his garden is not in danger.

In addition, butterflies skillfully mask the location of their oviposition, not so much from humans as from their natural enemies: birds and predatory insects.Often the location of the testicles is the place where the leaf and the fetus come in contact.

Testicles develop quite quickly, depending on the ambient air temperature, their incubation lasts from a week to two, and then those same nasty worms appear - caterpillars of the moth, which immediately begin to penetrate the flesh of the fetus, trying to get to its core. The larva often seals the inlet behind it with waste from the processing of apple pulp.

The next stage of development is the codling moth. It is a whitish-pinkish caterpillar about eighteen millimeters in size at the final development of its stage.

Gnawing the flesh of an apple or the fruit of another tree, the larva reaches the seed chamber, where the tender seeds of an unripe fruit are the reward for it. After the seeds are eaten, the caterpillar leaves the fruit and moves to another. In just a cycle, a small worm can damage two or three apples.

Attention! In warm years or in the southern regions, the butterfly codling moth is capable of giving two generations. Moreover, often both generations are able to coexist in parallel.

Having finished feeding, the caterpillar moves freely, to the trunks of an apple tree or another tree, where it falls into the so-called diapause, which occurs when daylight hours decrease in autumn.

Our help! Diapause is a state of development of an insect in which metabolic processes are inhibited.

The caterpillar is covered with a silky cocoon and falls from the tree onto the fallen leaves, in which it hibernates.

In spring, when the snow melts and the sun's rays warm the litter under the trees, the larvae go into the next phase of their development - the chrysalis. Golden brown pupa develops from one to five weeks depending on the weather conditions of a particular season.

Lesion objects

Apple codling moth is a multi-pest. In addition to apples, it is able to eat and develop on a pear tree, and even on a plum tree, eating its fruits. Quarantine pests of these crops, in contrast to it, are monophages.

Other codling moths

Having talked about the codling moth, we turn to the description of pests of other fruit crops. It should be borne in mind that the development cycle of insects of similar species almost completely coincides with the stages described above for the apple moth. Differences will be only in the external description, the duration of the phases of development and the habitats of one or another insect.

Pear moth

Unlike the apple sister, the pear moth only affects pears and is common in regions where wild pears grow in abundance. This is the south of our country, some regions of Ukraine and the Caucasus. This butterfly is also common in Central Asia and Europe.

As you can see in the photo, the pear butterfly is slightly darker than its apple sister, and it is also slightly larger in size. In the wingspan, some individuals reach twenty-two millimeters.

The eggs in the butterflies of the pear variety are reddish and then gray-pink in color and develop thanks to a warmer climate very quickly, after five to six days their incubation is completely completed.

The caterpillar of the pear moth is also different in color, although the dimensions are the same as the apple tree. The color of the larvae is initially off-white, and at the end of this developmental stage it becomes dark yellow, sometimes almost brown.

Our help! The pear moth for a season has only one generation!

The last stage - the pupa is also distinguished by its dark brown color in appearance.

Plum moth

This species of butterflies of the same family of leafworms differs from the previous two in smaller sizes - its wingspan is only fifteen millimeters. And this is not surprising given the food objects of the pest.

Regarding nutrition plum moth It is also multinivorous, except for the plum itself, it is able to eat similar fruits. depending on the region of residence.The larvae of this butterfly are able to eat the fruits of stone fruits, such as:

• blackthorn;
• apricot;
• cherry plum;
• sweet cherry.

This moth is often found in nectarines and peaches. In some cases, a plum butterfly infects even cherries, for which it is mistakenly called the cherry moth, although in reality such a pest does not exist.

Our help! Another type of insect often affects cherries and cherries - cherry fly. It, unlike butterflies, the codling moth belongs to another family - motley wings.

The plum moth is widespread, and depending on the region it can have from one to three generations of the life cycle: in the middle latitudes and Siberia - one, in the Far East, in Moldova, Ukraine and the North Caucasus - two each, and in the camps of Transcaucasia and Central Asia - three.

The first generation of females lays its greenish testicles on tree leaves, the second and third on ripening fruits. In young fruits, the plum moth caterpillars are able to bite into unhardened bones, while in more mature fruits they eat out cavities around them.

Nut moth

This butterfly is considered the closest relative of the codling moth, they are so similar both in appearance and in lifestyle. Butterflies lay their testicles before the nuts begin to harden, in milk ripeness, so to speak. The caterpillar gnaws all the insides of the nut and immediately crawls into the next, thus damaging up to four to five fruits.

The walnut codling moth generally has two generations per season. Interestingly, the first generation caterpillars gnaw the walnut kernel, and the second larva cotyledons.

Pea moth

Not only fruit fruits are damaged by butterflies of the leaf family, but also some vegetable crops, for example, legumes: peas, beans, beans and soy. Pea codling moth, for example, affects seeds not only of peas, but also of such plants as hemp and vetch. A small butterfly in the wingspan up to one and a half centimeters is painted, like individuals of many similar species, in shades of gray.

Larvae with a maximum length of twelve millimeters have a greenish color to match pea grains.

An interesting feature of this species of caterpillars is their extreme mobility. In addition, researchers note cannibalism among the larvae, together sneaking into the same bean. Each larva damages two or three peas, and if the clutch occurred on a vetch with smaller beans, then the entire pod dies.

The pea moth is widespread everywhere where pea plantings exist. In Russia, perhaps, only in the regions of the Far North these butterflies are not found.

Soy moth

The soy moth is of great originality, first of all it refers to the area of ​​its distribution. Since soybean culture is ubiquitous only in the Far East, it is the countries of this region that are mainly affected by the invasion of this pest.

This butterfly is very small compared with representatives of related species, its wingspan is only twelve millimeters. They are painted in a combination of brown with dark yellow shades of the scales that make them up.

The butterfly lays orange eggs half a centimeter long, from which caterpillars emerge, the color of which in turn combines pink and orange with yellow spots.

The nutrition of larvae is also interesting. Before getting into soya bean, the caterpillar braids it with a cone-shaped web. At first, the pests feed on the friable substance of the bean leaves, then they eat the grooves along the cotyledon edges, damaging the pea embryo.

Hemp Moth

Who would have thought, but there is even a hemp codling moth. Yes, this is also a butterfly of the leaf family. Damages, as the name implies, hemp plants. Unlike other species, caterpillars of this species alone are not enough to feed, so they make their way inside the stems and eat away the core.

The hemp moth is common in regions with a warm climate, such as:

• center and south of Europe;
• Iran and Asia Minor;
• North India
• East China
• Korea and Japan;
• North America.

A butterfly in the wingspan grows to fifteen millimeters - a female. The male is a couple of millimeters shorter than her, due to sexual dimorphism. Individuals are painted in shades of brown.

Reference! Sexual dimorphism - pronounced external differences between representatives of different sexes of the same species.

The female of the first generation is able to lay from one hundred to two hundred translucent yellowish eggs six tenths of a millimeter in length. The next generation of butterflies is more prolific. A female of the second age can lay already three hundred and fifty eggs. Moreover, the ovipositor is carried out in portions of 2-3 eggs at a time. Thirty percent of the eggs are located on the top of the hemp leaf, the remaining two thirds are on the bottom.

Caterpillars hatch from eggs laid on hemp leaves. As they grow, they move through the petioles into the stems of the plant and gradually move out from the inside. On one plant, up to fifty larvae can parasitize at a time.

Tomato pest

There is an erroneous opinion that codling moths also appear on tomatoes. However, it is not. The insect damaging tomatoes does not belong to leaflets, but to scoops, and we are not interested in the subject of our conversation today.

On the contrary, the tomato smell of the codling moths is not even to their taste, and they prefer to fly around the tomato patches on the side.

Other types of leaflets

There are many more types of leafworms or codling moths, for the description of which there is already not enough space on these pages. Therefore, we simply list their names, from which the objects of their quarantine effect will become clear:

• currant;
• peach or eastern;
• oak.

In addition, leafworms affect birch and alder, aspen and poplar, as well as many other plants. It is enough to say that there are more than a thousand genera of leafworms, and there are more than ten thousand species.

At the end of the conversation about butterflies and butterflies, we present you an instructive video about the fight against the apple moth.