Plums

[Hereford fruit grower]

Does anyone else have plum moth trouble this year? It's badly infected my Rivers Early Prolific so that about one in two fruits have 'added protein'. Yuk. Another very early variety, Bonne de Bry, seems undamaged but doesn't crop nearly as heavily.

Unlike codling moth in apples, the damage isn't visible until the plum is cut into two or bitten into. I gather that pheromones can be used to prevent it but one has to know in advance that the pest is planning an onslaught.

[mosstrooper]

Pheremone traps aren't a preventative but an indicator that plum moths are active, thereby telling you it's time to spray an insecticide.
I've not had plum moth damage yet as my trees are fairly new but,no doubt they will arrive in time.

[nickdub]

I use pheromone traps for plum moth, in fact I posted a thread about it a few months ago on here to make anyone-else with a possible problem aware of the pros/cons etc

[Lardman]

I normally have them very badly in the Warwickshire droopers at the top of the garden but I've not seen them in anything else. It may just be as they're very evident in the yellow plums and the frass is easily spotted.

I tried spraying the one year but it didn't really help and resorted to cutting each plum in half before using. Not sure if it's a bad year for it though, my fury friends aren't bothered about the maggots.

[Hereford fruit grower]

Thanks. In the fruit of Rivers Early Prolific, the frass is clearly visible once they've been there for a while. In newly-infested fruit, only the maggot's easily detectable because it hasn't made a mess yet.

I've started not eating it straight from the tree and will use pheromone traps in 2019.

R.E.P. crops heavily and regularly and ripens early; it's far too good a plum to lose to this pest.

[TrixC]

I have it really badly in my Early Transparent Gage, I think about half the fruit is infected. It’s distressing because the tree is young and it’s the first year it’s set a decent crop. It’s easy to tell the infected fruit because it ripened early.

[Lymmguineas]

I've got a dwarf plum tree on my plot (not sure what variety as I inherited it with the plot). Every ripe plum I've taken has had a plum moth maggot inside. I've cut a few of the plums that havent ripened yet and they seem fine inside. Does this mean that they will probably be ok once they ripen or is the maggot likely to hatch within as they get riper? I'm hoping they will be ok as it's probably the best crop I've ever had. It's also the first where I've had significant plum moth problems.

[nickdub]

The plums with maggots in will ripen more quickly and as the maggots get bigger they eat more of the flesh - I'd suggest picking them as soon as they seem ripe cutting out the stone and maggot and either using them for cooking or eating them depending on how strong your stomach is :-)

Unfortunately once you have these moths they're likely to come back again next year.

[chillithyme]

Same here, first time plum opal on a dwarf stock has mostly been infested, I might look into using grease bands for next year, Ive never used them before hope it works

[rocco1504]

Same here, first time plum opal on a dwarf stock has mostly been infested, I might look into using grease bands for next year, Ive never used them before hope it works

I've used tree grease on both of my plum trees for the last couple of years and not had any problems and I know we have a moth problem locally as a wild Damson that's 25 yds from my plot is rife with it so I'm presuming the grease has worked.


I use grease as I don't like to use chemical sprays too much because of harm to other insects and myself.

[Martin H]

My plum tree had only 25 fruit on it. Every single one had the grub in it when cut in half.

I put them in the bin, make it harder for them to turn into moths and come back next year.

I will have to try grease on the tree.

[Guest]

My victoria suffers every year and the first pick usually goes to the chickens, but the second pick wasn't very good this year either. I have several young plum trees near by and they didn't seem affected

[BUFFS]

I suppose that's a benefit of our climate up here, the bugs would need overcoats to survive around here, so we have never found any bugs in our plums/damsons, and we have just filled 3 washing up bowls of plums from our one Victoria tree and they are really lovely..

[It never rains..it pours]

I suppose that's a benefit of our climate up here, the bugs would need overcoats to survive around here, so we have never found any bugs in our plums/damsons, and we have just filled 3 washing up bowls of plums from our one Victoria tree and they are really lovely..

Thats good to know plum moth doesnt like the north, but had bad raspberry beetle here. Very jealous on the bowls of plums. I have never tasted a supermarket plum in the same league as my brothers vitoria same day as picked. Hope my plums start producing next year. Do your victorias not suffer from canker ?

[BUFFS]

Thats good to know plum moth doesnt like the north, but had bad raspberry beetle here. Very jealous on the bowls of plums. I have never tasted a supermarket plum in the same league as my brothers vitoria same day as picked. Hope my plums start producing next year. Do your victorias not suffer from canker ?

The victoria plum was part of a 4 tree deal and it was just put into what had been lawn and before that it was a gravel car park of the village hospital that this house was at that time, so it is fairly free draining even with our usual downpours. I put in two posts to train it along the side of the drive, like an espalier, some eight foot roofing batons pinned across and the branches tied on and all we have done since then is pick the fruit, it can be biennial but for us there is always loads of fruit. We have never found any canker or other problems on the tree, there is not a lot of fruit trees near me, I probably have the majority of the fruit trees in this locale @ 12, so we do get our five a day..