Blocking winter moths

Protect your plum trees with grease bands, says Ruth

- Ruth Hayes

A QUESTION: What’s worse than biting into a ripe, juicy plum and finding a maggot? The answer, of course, is ‘half a maggot,’ and this week I’ve been working hard to ensure I don’t experience that horror next summer.

Last year I delayed protecting our ‘Victoria’ plum tree with grease bands to block the upwards rise of flightless winter moths, but luckily only one or two fruits contained nasty pinkish moth grubs curled up in a mush of black ‘frass’, or droppings.

I’d prefer not to find any next year, so this week I have been fixing sticky bands to the trunk and stake of the plum tree to protect next year’s crop.

Painted-on grease or sticky bands are a good organic solution to codling, plum, mottled umber and winter moths – species that have wingless females that emerge from chrysalides in the soil, crawl up the trunks, and mate and lay their eggs.

Applied between now and the end of November these measures should stop many of the autumn-hatching females and keep your plums frass-free!