What's eating my golden delicious apple?

Golden Delicious apples face codling moth as the chief threat — larvae tunnel fruit and cause premature drop. Aphids, apple scab-vectoring woolly aphid, and spider mites also attack. Deer, rabbits, and birds target ripe fruit. Vigilant monitoring from petal fall through harvest is essential for a clean crop.

Larvae bore into developing fruit, leaving a frass-filled tunnel to the core and causing premature fruit drop Hang pheromone traps from petal fall to track adult flight; apply kaolin clay or spinosad at egg-hatch; use codling moth granulosis virus (Cyd-X) as a lower-spray option

Tightly curled, purplish leaves in spring; stunted, misshapen fruitlets that fail to size up Encourage ladybirds and lacewings; spray insecticidal soap or pyrethrin before leaf curl traps the colony; remove heavily infested shoot tips

Fine stippling on upper leaf surface; bronze-grey cast to foliage in mid-summer; heavy infestations cause early leaf drop Avoid broad-spectrum sprays that kill predatory mites; release Phytoseiulus persimilis; apply horticultural oil or sulphur in late dormancy

Deer browse shoots and strip bark in winter; rabbits gnaw the base of young trunks, girdling the tree Install 1.8 m (6 ft) wire-mesh fencing or individual tree guards; repellent sprays (deer); hardware-cloth cylinders around trunks to deter rabbits