How to spot it

Pinkish-white caterpillars with a brown head inside apples and pears. The adults are small gray moths with a coppery patch on each wingtip.

What it does

The caterpillar tunnels to the core, leaving a hole plugged with brown crumbly droppings. Fruit often drops early.

What to do now

• Pick up dropped fruit every week.
• Thin the fruit, and slip a paper or nylon bag over each apple when it's marble-sized.
• Spray spinosad or codling moth virus when the eggs hatch; your county extension office can give the timing.

Keep it away next time

• Wrap trunks with a band of corrugated cardboard in summer; caterpillars crawl in to pupate. Remove and destroy it.
• Hang pheromone traps to see when the moths are flying.

Helpful supplies

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Plants it affects