Common Pests of the Backyard Apple Orchard

Heritage and contemporary varieties of apple tree rootstocks are ordered each year for setting up modest and larger backyard orchards.

While apple trees can be hardy, the apple fruits can succumb to some of the most common pests affecting apples including aphids, birds, capsid bugs, codling moth caterpillars and red spider mite. Here’s an introduction to the damage that can be done to apple production.

Aphids Attack Apple Trees

Woolly aphid and rosy apple aphid can attack an orchard severely. In early spring a rosy apple aphid infestation will feed on an apple tree’s new leaves until they become yellowed and curled which will threaten the production of full-sized apples. In early summer sites of last year’s pruning and any cracks in the apple tree bark are weak spots to woolly aphid, a pest which will secrete a white wool-like waxy form onto the bark.

Birds and the Apple Orchard

Not all birds will be interested in being troublesome to the apple grower. Feathered foes of the apple orchard include blackbirds and starlings who will peck holes in the apples as they begin to ripen and sweeten in late summer.

The Royal Horticultural Society Vegetable and Fruit Gardening The Definitive Guide To Successful Growing edited by Michael Pollock (Dorling Kindersley, 2008) makes special mention, within birds as plant problems, of bullfinches as ‚”the prime suspect if fruit tree flower buds are eaten…since they flock and are voracious, damage can be severe”.

Capsid Bug Affects Apple Crops

Common green capsid bug and other capsid bug species affects the apple tree leaf shoot tips, distorts bud growth and reduces the crop of edible apples. Capsid bugs are lethal to apple, gooseberry, pear, plum and strawberry by killing the plant cells with its toxic saliva.

Codling Moth Damage to Fruits of Apple Trees

There is little to tell apart the damage that a codling moth can do to apple trees from the attack of an apple sawfly. Both pests will leave behind the detritus of maggoty apples in the backyard orchard. Codling moth caterpillars bury into the core of the apple fruits as they are developing and destroy them with holes.

Apple Orchards, Hot Summers and Red Spider Mite

A hot dry summer increases the risk of red spider mite affecting an apple orchard. A major symptom is the upper surfaces of some apple tree leaves turning chlorotic and dull with surrounding leaves showing a silvery deposit.

Red spider mite are tiny pests measuring 1mm long and apple tree barks crevices can be checked by fruit gardeners in winter for any redness which may signal red spider mite eggs are present.

National horticultural society education and outreach offices, local gardening clubs and garden centres will be able to offer their advice to fruit gardeners and orchard keepers on biological and chemical controls of these common pests affecting apple trees.