Apple borer

[NE PA QDM]

Five of my best trees were found to have holes in them from borers yesterday. I’d never noticed any damage from them in the past but maybe that’s because I never knew what the frass looked like.
I finally got these trees (4-7 years old) to the point of bearing and now they have big holes in them.

several of them were behind screens, one was below the soil line.

For the first time ever I considered quitting this apple growing game. So many things that can go wrong.

 

[NE PA QDM]

Will this tree survive? The top looks fine. It is staked. It will be painted with permethrin and sevin in the paint.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I wouldn't give up on it. We have an older tree at camp that has half the trunk gone and it still produces a bunch of apples. Paint it & give it some time to heal.

 

[BobinCt]

A friend of mine who runs an orchard said Lorsban works well for borers. He says you should apply at this time of the year.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Will this tree survive? The top looks fine. It is staked. It will be painted with permethrin and sevin in the paint.

Doesn't look too bad in that pic. Sometimes the amount of invisible damage can be much worse though. Whenever I find damage like that I take a small knife and a piece if wire and scrape away the dead and rotten bark and follow the borer holes with the wire. Often times the borer damage is 90% around the trunk and there is very little hope of saving the tree.

 

[chummer]

I don’t think that is from an apple borer. My have looked like drill holes in the first 6” of trunk. The tree wilts and dies pretty quick.

 

[NE PA QDM]

I don’t think that is from an apple borer. My have looked like drill holes in the first 6” of trunk. The tree wilts and dies pretty quick.

The bark here was removed by me, there was a hole in the center that was circular. There’s another circular hole above and to the left of the damaged bark.

 

[chummer]

I think you got to it in time. If the leaves haven’t started to wilt I think you are okay. Take a wire and put it in all the holes you found to make sure you kill the borers.