What's eating my greengage?

Greengages, among the most flavourful plums, are prone to plum moth, plum sawfly, and plum leaf-curling aphid. Their thin skin makes ripe fruit highly attractive to wasps and birds. Plum moth is the most damaging pest across the season — pheromone monitoring and prompt removal of windfalls significantly reduces crop losses.

Pink caterpillars bore through the flesh to the stone; telltale frass at the stalk end; fruit may drop early or contain larvae at harvest. Pheromone traps from May; spinosad applied at first adult capture and repeated after 3 weeks; collect and destroy all windfalls.

Larvae enter tiny fruitlets just after petal fall, exuding gummy resin; affected fruitlets drop in a June drop. Apply pyrethrin or deltamethrin at petal fall; remove infested fallen fruitlets to limit soil pupation.

Distorts and curls young shoot tips in spring, stunting extension growth and reducing the following year's fruit buds. Spray with insecticidal soap or pyrethrin at bud burst before the colony becomes sheltered by curled leaves.

Excavates the sweet, thin-skinned ripe fruit, creating large cavities; wound sites rapidly rot. Wasp traps around the tree from late July; harvest as soon as fruit ripens; pick up windfalls daily.