Looks like frass from a coddling moth worm in the fruit. Cut into one of those and see if a worm has been eating inside.

Yeah I think your right :( do you know what I can do about this?

You've got to spray early in the year and continuing for a period of time. But I can't tell you what or when is right for your area. There are more organic approaches. Maybe someone from your area will chime in.

I get fairly good, and sometimes excellent, control of codling moth with three or four sprays per year. Timing depends on the conditions each year. Male codling moths are easily caught in a pheromone trap and when we get up to about half a dozen I wait a week to ten days and spray with spinosad or Spectracide Triazicide Once and Done. Spinosad is organic but timing is touchier.

But that's in Montana, which has an arid climate- bound to be different from England.

I don't even spray for coddling moth and eliminate much of the problem with the two insecticide sprays I put down for plum curculio starting at petal fall. The question is the percentage of fruit you are losing- the damaged fruit is obvious and can be sorted out if you are losing only a fraction of your fruit.

After five years of mating disruption I have mostly eliminated my moth problems. It takes a few years to get the population levels down to where the disruption works, but it got better year by year. The main problem is sourcing the lures, various regulations make them not available in all states. Oh I see you are in England... I don't know whats available there, but hopefully the situation is better there than in the states.

Scott

That's lot to take in for a newbie like me, but u will get my head around I think I will try a mixture of traps/ spraying. I've read to take pears that are infected off the tree but is there anything else I can do at this time of the year. The weather is quite hot and humid at times, until we get a thunderstorm to clear it up, but it's still quite hot here even with the rain

That's lot to take in for a newbie like me, but u will get my head around I think I will try a mixture of traps/ spraying. I've read to take pears that are infected off the tree but is there anything else I can do at this time of the year. The weather is quite hot and humid at times, until we get a thunderstorm to clear it up, but it's still quite hot here even with the rain

This is the RHS advice. Don't worry about the above reference to plum curculio - we don't get it here and fingers crossed we never do.

Here is a link that might be useful: Codling Moth