Pests on fruit trees are difficult for many hobby gardeners. Our little guide will tell you what these are and what you can do.
Fruit from the home garden is the pride of every gardener. But as popular as apple, pear or cherry are with us humans, so are the fruit trees with pests. Now it would make no sense to want to protect the fruit trees against pests beforehand. Each tree has its own peculiarities, which could not be covered by a single measure. It is also natural that fruit trees protect themselves in a certain way. This happens, for example, by the leaves falling and rotting. This creates natural humus that provides the tree with the necessary nutrients.
Despite self-protection, it is often unavoidable that pests settle on and on fruit trees. A large part of the pests are caterpillars, mites and aphids. However, you should differentiate between real pests and less dangerous animals before you start fighting.
Small and large frost tensioners
Small frost tensioner - The frost tensioner is one of the most dangerous caterpillar types. Whereby one differentiates exactly between the small and the large frost tensioner. The most dangerous for fruit trees is the small frost tensioner. If a fruit tree, or other trees, are infected by the small frost tensioner, in the worst case it can lead to balding.To control the pest infestation, you can hang nesting boxes for great tits. For the birds, the frost tension caterpillars are a favorite dish. If it is not possible to fight the frostbite naturally, wrap glue rings around the trunk. As soon as the sticky effect wears off, the glue rings have to be changed.
Leaf bug
Leaf bugs feed mainly on plant sap. - The leaf bug does nothing to humans or animals, but it is harmful to our fruit trees. Leaf bugs are between five and ten millimeters in size, have wings and a yellow-green-red color mixture. They feed on the sap and ruin the tree. The infestation is recognizable from perforated leaves and deformed fruits.Leaf bugs are very heat-loving, which means that if it gets colder and wetter, they will disappear on their own. If that's not enough for you, the only thing left to do is to fight with paraffin oil-containing agents.
Apple wrapper (fruit made)
Caterpillar caterpillar - ® nounours1 / stock.adobe.com The fruit made is a pest that affects not only apple trees or apples. Pests and quinces as well as stone fruit, figs and walnuts are also colonized by the pest. The females lay eggs, from which the caterpillars hatch. The voracious animals then freely use the skin of the apple right into the flesh.To give the apple wrapper no chance, it is best to wrap a wide strip of corrugated cardboard around the tree trunk. The space in the corrugated cardboard is used by the fruit maggots as a place to lay eggs. At the end of July you can remove the cardboard and dispose of it together with the apple wrapper.
More pests
However, there are far more pests on fruit trees than those mentioned here. Animals such as the leaf flea, the gall mosquito, the hazelnut borer and the raspberry beetle also cause damage.
