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| Local Orchards |
| Picking Apples |
| Hayrides and Animals |
| Apple Varieties |
| Apple Cider |
| Apple Pie |
| Pumpkins Too |
| Four Seasons |
| Controlling Pests |
| Conserving an Orchard |
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Controlling Pests with IPM
The ladybug is the IPM apple farmer's friend. Ladybugs and their larvae are voracious predators and their favorite meal is aphids. Each ladybug can devour over 5,000 aphids during its lifetime. IPM uses natural predators like the ladybug.
Apple Maggot Flies are attracted to traps with color and odor, and then trapped on sticky paper. Tarnished Plant Bugs are controlled by delaying mowing the fields. This keeps other foods available that the bugs prefer to apple blossoms. These IPM methods are described by West Meadows Farm in Vermont.
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Integrated Pest
Management (IPM)
saves money as well as protecting the
environment at both Carver Orchard and Shelburne Farm in
Stow. IPM is an ecologically-based approach to pest control,
combining several different techniques to maintain pests below
damaging levels with little or no spraying.
The Codling Moth, shown here, is
controlled without spray with IPM. Male moths are attracted
to a perfume the female moths give off. To fool the
male, IPM farms hang dispensers of the perfume all over the
orchard. With the odor everywhere, the males are unable to
find the females, no mating takes place, and the females don't lay
eggs in the apples. 