My guess would be PC, and my other guess would be you sprayed too early (and rained washed most of it away).

Too early isn't an issue. Not hitting follow up sprays on time would be.
Spray is not 100% effective so finding one bite is not proof of failure by any means.

That doesn't look like PC to me. Just an average bug that eats stuff. If it is curculio I'd say it was looking for lunch and not a nursery.

Imidan has pretty good rain fastness and I never respray because of rain as long as it has time to set before washing off. A couple of hours with good drying conditions should be enough.

Are all your apple varieties affected or just the ones with largest fruit? I have some damage on my Tompkins King (a real curc magnet) which was at petal fall before later varieties, so spray was a bit late for it. The kings (largest apples in cluster) are most often hit.

I agree that doesn't look like curc injury but maybe some kind of worm instead. No need to worry if only half of your fruit is scarred- it will take some of the pain out of thinning.

Hman, yes, all varieties are hit. It does appear that the largest of the apples in each cluster have the highest hit rates. I'm interested in your comment that your Tompkins King was at petal fall, ahead of other varieties, and your spray was "a bit late for it." I thought petal fall was the earliest you could spray.

This particular bite or sting looked fresher than most. Most have skin grown over a depression. They are not crescent shape like the PC bites of last year.

How long do you think a treatment of Imidan is effective? I have tended to be a spray mimimalist, spraying every 2 or 3 weeks--less often in dry conditions. Should I be more aggressive?

Thanks,
Marc

Marc:

That looks like bird damage to me. Birds with too much time on their hands. My orchard is full of birds of every species known to the area, and some that are not. Orchards are bird magnets.

If you can get ziploc bags on the apples, the damage will stop. Of course, so will any insect damage. Bagging is tedious, mind-numbing work, but oh-so-effective. I try to get around 100 bags on every day at this time of year, but usually don't quite make it. Too many trees with too many apples.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Imidan can be sprayed at intervals of up to 14 days and I've gotten good protection. As far as waiting to petal fall, I wait until last flowering apples have dropped petals before spraying even apricots and here in NY it has worked well for me although in my own orchard I lose more Euro plums to PC than I'd like. Funny how out of 100 orchards I manage, mine is the one with that issue.

As long as the damage you're seeing doesn't go deep into the apple they will probably stick and heal with nothing but a very minor blemish.

Don's methods of bagging are quite reasonable down south but up here where just 2 insecticide sprays usually stick sound apples to the trees, bagging doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Strange. I have seen that kind of multiple fruit damage on my cherries from birds but never on the apples - they usually just peck at a couple. So I don't see a strong match for birds. PC can make feeding wounds but they are usually flat, not indented like that. If you have many flat wounds I would say you have PC which are only biting and not egg laying. Some kinds of apples in my orchard the PC only bites and doesn't lay eggs in, other kinds get eggs everywhere.

This year I generally came out OK in that I could thin all the PC infected fruits without overthinning, but a few apples were PC magnets, I think the ones at the top of the hill since they tend to head uphill as that usually is the top of the tree. On those couple trees I left a fair number of apples with PC bites but no egg laid.

Scott

Marc:

I continue to believe that you are seeing bird damage on your apples. Insects use apples as hatcheries for their eggs and a comfortable living for their larvae until they are ready to pupate. Insects do not visit apples to feed; they are there to propagate their species. I know of no insect that can zoom in, take a chunk like that out of an apple, and make a clean getaway. The brown area under the damage is simply oxidation, which happens to any apple when the flesh is exposed to oxygen.

Birds do this kind of thing all the time. Not in every orchard, or in every season, but they do it.

Bagging apples is a chore, and I am happy for H-man that he does not have to bag in his climate, but here below the Mason/Dixon line we do it or we spray a lot.

If you are losing up to 50% of your already thinned and selected apples, that is too heavy a price to pay. Bag those apples, and you will defeat the birds as well as the codling moth that is likely to show up later. Not to mention 90% reduction in sooty blotch and flyspeck.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I know this post is from May, but I just lost one of only two apples on my Sweet Sixteen tree to a bird. I dutifully bagged my apples this spring and they all seem to be doing great. The bird pecked the apple right through the plastic bag, Made a deep gouge, apparently hit it several times. Bags aren't altogether bird proof.
Ted

Could it be caterpillars?

I get them sometimes..

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