Codling-Moth Control in Fruit Sheds. 245 



CODLING-MOTH CONTROL IN FRUIT SHEDS. 



By F. W. Pettey, Pli.D., Entomologifst, Elsenburg School of 



Agriculture. 



A CONSIDERABLE number of fruit growers who possess large orchards 

 have reported that codling-moth infestation of the fruit has increased 

 to an alarming extent iu recent years, regardless of spraying with the 

 correct mixture as often as oihcially recommended. The writer, after 

 investigating conditions in a number of these large orchards, has con- 

 cluded that the serious state of affairs has arisea through several 

 causes. 



Within the last few years these large orchards have attained 

 their fullest bearing capacity. The enormous increase in crop and 

 acreage to cover with the spray wagon, has not in many cases been 

 satisfactorily met with in a corresponding increase in competent 

 supervisors for the work. The result has been that constant satis- 

 factory supervision oF native sprayers in the orchard has been sacri- 

 ficed necessarily for supervision in the packing and drying shed. 

 Natives cannot in most cases be expected to spray thoroughly and 

 correctly without constant attention from a European. 



Fruit growers handling large crops hnd it difficult to harvest and 

 store all fruit as soon as it is mature. The longer mature fruit is 

 left on the tree, the longer it is exposed to infestation, and the more 

 codling larvae escape from it in the orchard to increase the number 

 of moths forming the next generation. The longer late maturing 

 fruits are left on the trees, the more larvae escape, hibernate in the 

 orchard, and increase the infestation the next fruit season. 



Some growers either have too few labourers to give attention 

 to the regular picking up of infested windfalls, or they do not con- 

 sider such fruit to be of sufficient value to warrant storage. Allowing 

 such windfalls to remain on the ground results in the escape of so 

 many more codling lars^ae in the orchard to aggravate infestation, not 

 only in the season's crop, but in that of the succeeding year. 



Another factor which is by far the most responsible for serious 

 infestation in large orchards, is the tendency to utilize more and 

 more the infested fruit for drying, with no attention whatever to 

 storage of such fruit to ripen in a room so constructed that larvae 

 leaving the infested fruit may be captured, or in order that moths 

 emerging ultimately in the fruit shed may be prevented from flying 

 to the orchard. 



The practice of allowing thousands of wormy fruits to remain in 

 piles, or in open boxes, or in drying trays either out-of-doors, under 

 trees, or in open sheds while ripening sufficiently for drying, could 

 not be more effective for increasing codling infestation in the orchard, 

 unless measures are taken to capture the escaping worms. Thousands 

 of larvae leave such fruits, resulting in as many thousands of moths 

 ultimately flying to the nearby orchards. Many of these moths may 



