Oriental fruit moth worm with legs. Plum curculio with no leg.

Tony

Here is a link that might be useful: OFM

If all that damage is from that critter, that's one extremely *hungry* caterpillar!

I'd also suspect something larger -- bird? rat?

Spray some BT. Unless you've already thinned and there are many, it's just helping at this point.

Thanks for the responses.

Yes, that is damage from one worm - I found it on the fruit - but that fruit is only marble-sized at this point.

I suspected OFM myself, but noted these differences:
1) My worm is quite a bright green color - all web pix I've seen show OFM larva cream to pale yellow.
2) I didn't see the three protruding pairs of black legs on any picture of the OFM larva.
3) Web info says the OFM larva bores into the fruit and leaves only a small hole outside. My worm eats away at the outside only.

This thing is only nuisance level at this point - hoping it doesn't get out of hand. I'm sure the BT spray wouldn't hurt.

Anybody see OFM larva look/act like this? Or other ideas?

It's not OFM eating on the outside like that. I don't know what it is but unless damage is severe and most years ID isn't that critical.

I have the same thing on my trees right now. No fruit yet, but they love the leaves. They use webbing to pull the leaves together and hide inside them, then eat the leaves from the inside. Makes it easy for me to locate and squish them. I don't want to spray until flowers have dropped. They are only doing minimal damage right now, though.

Click link at the bottom to learn about the worm.

Here is a link that might be useful: Green fruit worm

Here's another link about leafroller worms, which I'm sure is what I have. Looks like the are also common in CA.

Here is a link that might be useful: Leafrollers

The OFM worms I saw were white, nothing that green.

Last year I left my OFM damaged peaches (dime- quarter sized) in a bucket for a few days. I had many worms crawling around at the bottom of the buckets. What a sight to see (not)!!

Thanks, Rob. Fruit tree leaf roller looks like the culprit. I was glad to learn there's only one generation per year and not likely something that will get out of hand.

johnny:

Leaf rollers got out of hand in my greenhouse a couple years until I learned how to exclude them. They are bad around here on grapes and sometimes pecan. But there are many types. Mine only fed on the surface of the fruit.