April, '11] o'kane: apple maggot control 173 



President Sanderson: -The next paper vAW be given by Mr. 

 O'Kane. 



CONTROL OF THE APPLE MAGGOT BY PICKING UP DROPS 



By W. C. O'Kane, New Hainpshire 



The Apple Maggot, Rhagoletis pomonella Walsh, continues to be 

 one of the troublesome fruit pests in the New England States and in 

 eastern Canada. Of the apple enemies in this region it is probably 

 the most serious, and unquestionably the most difficult for the grower 

 to handle. 



For the past year and a half the New Hampshire station has been 

 at work on this insect. The investigation is still in progress. But 

 some interesting facts have come to light this season. 



Among these are the results of a series of experiments in the matter 

 of control by picking up drops. Since these particular results have a 

 definite economic bearing, they seem Avorth presenting in brief sum- 

 marized form at this time in advance of detailed publication at a 

 later date. 



Ever since it was found out that the maggot matures in the drops, 

 and goes from them into the ground to pass the winter, the usual 

 advice to the grower has been to keep the drops picked up. This has 

 been, and still appears to be, the most vulnerable point in the life 

 round of this insect. 



But what do we mean by keeping the drops cleaned up? How 

 often must the fallen fruit be gathered? Offer this remedy to a 

 dozen fruit growers, and they will give it half-a-dozen different inter- 

 pretations. In conversation with, and reports from, many growers, 

 I have found that some of them considered that they were keeping the 

 drops picked up if they cleaned up the orchard once or twice in a 

 season; others rejected the remedy because they inferred that the 

 scheme involved a cleaning up once or twice a day. 



It has not been possible to offer the grower specific instructions, 

 for there are no records on which to base a definite program. 



It is quite conceivable that in a given case a remedy which required 

 going over the orchard daily would be impracticable and uneco- 

 nomic, while a clean up once a week, for example, if this would suffice, 

 would easily be managed. 



Our plans for the past season, therefore, in our work on the maggot, 

 included a rather comprehensive series of experiments designed to 

 determine definitely how often the drops must be picked up; or, in. 

 other words, how soon after the apple falls the maggots leave it to enter 

 the ground. 



