Control of peach fruit moth
Control of peach fruit moth (cont from last month)
For several decades, Chinese farmers have bagged their apples and peaches individually to protect from various insect pests including peach fruit moth.
Insecticides for control of peach fruit moth have always been used in jujube where bagging is not an option.
For many years, Chinese orchards were small, typically half an acre. In most regions, trees were trained to low vase shapes that allowed all operations including bagging of fruit to be done from the ground. This is changing.
The rural population in China is aging. Children are moving to the cities where jobs are better paid and life is more exciting than ‘down on the farm’.
Farms are amalgamating into larger units and adopting western tree training methods and practices that result in higher yields.
Rural labour is now relatively in short supply (the inevitable outcome of the ‘one child’ policy) and expensive. Labour intensive practices such as bagging, are on the way out.
Attract and kill system for peach fruit moth
Sinogreen is well advanced in development of an ‘attract and kill’ system for peach fruit moth that uses very small quantities of the pheromone together with a new dispenser technology.
We believe that this will have significant advantages in cost, demand for labour and efficacy over bags, cover sprays and a now dated Japanese mating disruption technology.
Movement and threat to Australia and New Zealand
Peach fruit moth can realistically only enter Australia and New Zealand by importation of infested apples, jujube and perhaps peaches and pears.
Jujube is not imported into Australia at this stage. Quarantine protocols are in place to prevent this insect from entering.
The moth is not highly mobile so if it did enter, once detected, it could be contained and eradicated.
While peach fruit moth is a serious pest, it does not constitute a major threat to apple industry in Australia and New Zealand.
See this article in Tree Fruit July 2017
