Author Topic: Bramley apples  (Read 3505 times)

Borlotti

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Bramley apples
« on: August 08, 2017, 21:58:54 »
I have picked some of the big ones, and left some for the lovely allotment folk.  But today I found some had been eaten, but had enough for Mary Berrys American apple cake, which is in the oven now.  Second one so far, lovely, off topic.  The tree is loaded, my question should I pick them, is it too early, or wait until they all get nasty things inside the apples.  Have enough for me for apple sauce etc. which I have cooked and frozen.  I think sometimes if you leave them on the tree too long, they get eaten by whatever.  Help. please.  The ones that I thought was not ready were good cooked, but the ones I got today had to cut a lot of the middle out, something had eaten them.  :BangHead: :BangHead:

strawberry1

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2017, 06:24:47 »
That is exactly what I am wondering. Do these apples get attacked by codling when they are almost mature or is the grub lurking from early summer? I know the large hole appears when the grub emerges. This year I put a trap up but in the wrong place, in an apple tree and over half the apples on that tree have been affected. I am not using a trap again, it was rubbish

Last year I sprayed, only once and had perfect apples on all my trees, the late maturing ones, like bramleys were picked in early october and kept for quite a few weeks

Duke Ellington

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2017, 13:26:49 »
Borlotti,

I can find a recipe online for Mary Berrys American Apple and Apricot cake. Is this the recipe you have but without the apricots?

DUke
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Borlotti

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2017, 15:42:00 »
It is American apple and apricot cake, and sprinkled with flaked almonds.  OH likes it so must be OK.  I have the Marry Berry's simple cakes book.  The banana loaf is also good, and I can often get ripe bananas cheap.  I like the apple and apricot cake as a pudding with custard. I am not the best cake maker, but her recipes in this book are quite easy (hence the title). This is the second one I have made this year, as had enough ready to eat dried apricots for two cakes.  Have some flaked almonds left so may well make another one. Heavy rain here today, all day so a good day for baking.

Vinlander

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #4 on: August 10, 2017, 12:12:00 »
To get back to fresh fruit and away from baked goods...
That is exactly what I am wondering. Do these apples get attacked by codling when they are almost mature or is the grub lurking from early summer? I know the large hole appears when the grub emerges. This year I put a trap up but in the wrong place, in an apple tree and over half the apples on that tree have been affected. I am not using a trap again, it was rubbish

Last year I sprayed, only once and had perfect apples on all my trees, the late maturing ones, like bramleys were picked in early october and kept for quite a few weeks
The "nasty things" are in there from the start, but obviously do most damage when they are biggest.

The apple moth gets in & lays eggs while they are flowering, plum moth is the same. So spraying can only work on the flowers.

Both maggots  have the effect of producing an early drop - it seems that the inhabited ones speed up ripening.

This is most noticeable with plums - the first week of ripe fruit are nearly all inhabited, the last week is almost clear, and the ones in the middle all need to be split before eating.

Minute, short, clean dead-end tunnels occasionally show up in apples - maybe they managed to smother their maggot before it could ruin the fruit? - the harder crisper varieties like Ashmeads Kernel seem best at this - but they aren't immune. I can't swear to smothering being the real cause - the missing maggots might just have been sick.

Cheers.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2017, 12:14:18 by Vinlander »
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

strawberry1

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #5 on: August 10, 2017, 17:58:07 »
Thanks for the info vinlander, so a quick spray is out as I want to be looking after the bees, oh well. There is an upside in that all the bountiful apples have been very easy to deal with, the middle bits and tunnels cut out easily and the fruit puree is delicious. That plus the fact that at least I can get on and get these frozen in portions nice and early. Three more batches to be processed, just one of  which is affected and I will be done. Then whatever happens I can rest easy knowing that I have a years supply of puree in the fridge for me and for pies and crumble for guests. Its not a complete downside at all

Beersmith

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #6 on: August 10, 2017, 23:19:29 »
To combat codling moth, all the expert advice is to spray around the third week in June well after blossom has set.

I spray my apples just once each year as close to this time as possible and consistently get very low levels of spoiled fruit. I also use sticky bands changed twice each year.

I generally spray as little as possible, but feel a single well timed treatment is a better compromise than using either lots of chemicals or ending up with almost no usable apples.
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Vinlander

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #7 on: August 11, 2017, 14:30:10 »
To combat codling moth, all the expert advice is to spray around the third week in June well after blossom has set.

My apples are mostly from groups 2, 3 and 4 - but that's still about a month of flowering, and I assume a month of egg-laying.

Are the experts saying that the full month's worth of eggs and maggots are exposed outside the fruit long enough for them all to be killed by one hit?

I ask because I would be happy to spray my trees once a year with genuine pyrethrum (not pyrethrins) just after sunset when the bees have gone to bed, and I can be sure that the pyrethrum will have stopped working by the time they wake up.

Or are the experts using something more persistent?

I would consider using pyrethrum  maybe 4 or 5 times during the specified period, but if it takes more than that I still wouldn't use anything more persistent - I'd rather skip the spray and use the time saved to juice the good bits of the 10-20% that have maggot.

Most of the maggoty apples fall a week or two before the clean crop anyway. The odd 1% or 2% in the clean crop don't bother me, and the ones that fall earlier are just saving me some thinning. This pattern is even more obvious with plums.

I gave up spraying flowers when they banned nicotine - a cheaper** and more effective insecticide - but its very short persistence was if anything even more reliable than true pyrethrum (without any risk that a 'cide company might boost their profits by sneaking in some permethrins - **less money to save - pyrethrum is very expensive).

No bee was ever killed by night-time nicotine, and no human was ever poisoned by its residue - because there never was any. Compare and contrast with 'cide chemicals. They even tested snow and ice core samples from both poles while it was in general use worldwide and no nicotine was ever found - just loads and loads of residues from synthetic 'cides, and that's increasing every year.

Cheers.

PS. I don't suffer from gardening nostalgia per se: From Victorian times right into the 50's, the orchards that didn't use nicotine were spraying their trees with lead arsenate  - now there's a spray that doesn't need testing before banning - it's a no-brainer - but it was used despite that double-whammy of obvious toxicity - even home gardeners used it on their own trees  :BangHead:.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

Beersmith

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #8 on: August 11, 2017, 21:51:31 »
To combat codling moth, all the expert advice is to spray around the third week in June well after blossom has set.


Are the experts saying that the full month's worth of eggs and maggots are exposed outside the fruit long enough for them all to be killed by one hit?



First I must stress I am not claiming to be an expert. My approach has relied on information taken from the RHS on line site. Here is what they say about codling moth.

Adult codling moths emerge in late May-June and lay eggs on or near developing fruits from June to mid-July. The adults are small, up to 22mm wingspan, with blackish-brown and grey speckled wings with a bronzy patch  near the outer edge. After hatching, the small white, brown-headed caterpillar bores into a fruit and feeds in the core region for about four weeks until fully grown. The insect leaves the fruit to overwinter as non-feeding caterpillars in leaf litter or under loose flakes of bark and they pupate in the following spring.

So it appears that to combat codling moth you can wait until all blossom is over but before the eggs hatch and get into the developing fruits.  The RHS use pheromone traps partly to identify the best time to spray. For us lesser mortals late June seems optimum.

One observation of my own. If kept under control, there are fewer adults to cause trouble next season, and it remains easy to keep under control. When out of control, adult numbers increase, making it harder to control in the future. I use pyrethrum and pyrethrin sprays only - nothing else, and only once per season for this purpose. I fully support and admire your resolve not to harm bees and other pollinators.
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Vinlander

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #9 on: August 12, 2017, 11:57:50 »
Thanks Beersmith, I will use a single spray of real pyrethrum after sunset in late June 2018 - I'm confident enough that it can do no harm.

I'll be interested to see if it does any good - it probably will as I live near enough to the centre of gravity of the RHS, but If I lived in Scotland (or indeed anywhere north of Watford) I'd be inclined to do more research on the date.

It would be very useful if anyone who uses pheremone traps could post timely information (here?) when their moth activity peaks - especially if they have an orchard in outlying areas.

Codling watch anyone?

Pyrethrins are difficult to judge - they are described as "stabilised" - how much?

NB. I was confusing them with the genuinely persistent (and therefore bee- threatening) pyrethroids in my last post. Worryingly, all the sprays recommended on the RHS codling moth page are pyrethroids (and neonicotinoid acetamiprid !!!). Clearly the RHS are a long way from being on the side of the angels.

Apparently pyrethrins' main degradation is due to UV - the Wikipedia page doesn't make it clear if that also applies to real pyrethrum.

The recommended fruit-set timing should put the spray well after pollen and nectar production, and that is the bees' best hope of avoiding it.

Hive bees are pretty lazy by comparison with solitary bees so they might be OK anyway, but I worry about the solitaries - having seen them hard at work in March or before I'd be surprised if they aren't up at the crack of dawn.

Cheers.

PS. I've found some interesting advice on http://www.pesticide.org/moths_codling - a slightly confusing domain name for NCAP - The Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides. I will put a few summary points on TopTips.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

Russell

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #10 on: August 12, 2017, 23:20:21 »
I have found that the best time for spraying varies from year to year, depending on the earliness or lateness of spring. In the shrubbery in my garden I have some Solomon`s Seal plants which are reliably attacked by their own private variety of greedy sawfly at exactly the right time to spray your apples. You cannot mistake the attack of the sawfly, they defoliate your plants. If you follow this rule one spraying will be quite enough. It only remains to make sure there is no flowering plant beneath your tree or in the line of fire in any other way.
I understand that the sawfly does not fly into the northern parts of our country, indeed in the English Midlands it is a fairly recent immigrant - perhaps motivated by global warming.

Beersmith

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #11 on: August 14, 2017, 16:58:19 »
Thank you Vinlander and others for some very interesting observations.

Continuing on the same theme, does anyone have information on the actual effectiveness of sticky bands? I use these consistently but am never sure if they are doing much good.
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johhnyco15

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #12 on: August 14, 2017, 19:41:04 »
i sprayed this year for the first time 20Th June each year I'm ravaged by codling moth despite  moth traps glue bands and the like this year however ive only lost 2 apples to the dreaded moth so next year ill be spraying again for sure i used bayer fruit and veg bug killer one bottle done my 40 trees they are only espaliers and cordons so not big but it worked a treat hope this helps
johhnyc015  may the plot be with you

strawberry1

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #13 on: August 15, 2017, 06:41:19 »
I am going to spray next year too, only one spray but it was very effective last year. I used sticky bands for years, had  no apparent effect on codling and grease on the trees attracts cats and they scratch the bark to bits. The ground below every tree is free from litter but these things hide all over the place

I agree about the bumble bees being up and about very early. They are always active, however early I get out. Not seen any honey bees this year and I know local people have hives but they are still spraying oilseed rape

strawberry1

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #14 on: August 16, 2017, 10:03:26 »
I picked a few more bramleys yesterday and today, made lovely puree, packed mostly in small tubs for one. The bardseys are all picked too and the last pan batch is being processed with a couple of bramleys. This gives a lovely combo, packed in larger pots, ready for pies and crumbles. Soft mushy from the bramleys and soft slices from the bardseys. Got plenty frozen now, plenty for me and plenty for the grandchildren and anyone else wants a piece of lovely pie

I sort of feel a bit of friendliness to codling this year, the processing is done early, which helps me  but I am still spraying next year as I prefer to get more bramleys into store, I have about 10 left on the tree. Next year I will also help the june drop as fewer larger apples have made a big difference. Also some bramleys grow face to face but not next year as they enabled earwigs to hide and they have caused damage, I had two pairs

tricia

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Re: Bramley apples
« Reply #15 on: August 16, 2017, 12:07:06 »
My so-called Golden Delicious from Lidl produced a good crop for the first time, but after doing some Googling I'm pretty sure it's a Grenadier - definitely a cooker and already harvested and made into lovely puree for the most part. Some, I sliced thickly and fried in butter with sugar and cinnamon for a couple of minutes then froze, all now ready for pies or turnovers.

No codling moth damage, maybe due to the trap I hung as soon as the blossom appeared, but some caused by other critters, tiny white ones which bore from the skin and seem to give up before reaching the core.

I can't spray my trees (or anything else) because my neighbour has a beehive and lost all his bees in the spring - he thinks due to me spraying the weeds in the lane outside my wall! No proof, of course, but whatever killed all his bees cost a lot of money to replace, so I won't be using any kind of spray again!

Tricia  :wave:


 

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