What's eating my sugar apple?

The annona seed borer wasp is the dominant pest of sugar apple — larvae ruin fruit from the inside, leaving tell-tale black entry holes. Plumose scale coats stems and causes branch dieback. Mealybugs and whiteflies also appear. Bagging individual fruits when small is the most reliable protection against the seed borer.

Small black holes on fruit surface; brown or black internal decay; ruined fruit and premature drop. Bag each fruit in a paper or mesh bag once it reaches 1–5 cm diameter; remove and destroy any infested fruit.

Dark gray circular scale on stems and crotch angles; loss of tree vigor, leaf browning, and shoot dieback in heavy infestations. Apply horticultural oil to smother crawlers during the crawler stage; prune and destroy heavily encrusted wood.

White cottony masses on leaves, stems, and developing fruit; deformed fruit and sticky honeydew. Neem oil or insecticidal soap sprays; ant exclusion banding to break the ant–mealybug mutualism.