Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

Codling moth caterpillars in apples are a real nuisance: the young caterpillars tunnel straight into the developing tiny apple (known in old English language as a “codling”) and consume the growing fruit and seeds that form inside. It’s not nice to bite into one of those caterpillars! To keep the caterpillars out of your crop there are a few tricky things you can do. The first thing is to employ a codling moth pheromone trap. This often triangular contraption has a sticky base and a small rubber cap full of artificial pheromone, that leaks a good dose of sex-attractant for the local male population. The guys will get very excited about this smell and literally race towards the trap, while preparing for the mating sequence in mid-flight. Of course, it all ends in tears for the poor blokes as they may find themselves stuck with their Family Benefit on the sticky surface. The technical term for this is "mating disruption". But it also allows us to precisely time the peak mating flight period of the first generat