Pests and diseases
of apples
please allow half a minute for pictures to
load
It is a melancholy fact
that the
apple is
parasitised by a wide range of pests and
diseases which
at worst can reduce the crop to zero, and damage or even kill the
tree. It's true to say that you can still get some sort of crop by
leaving nature largely to itself, but for consistency and quality, and
some years to get even one clean apple, you need to understand and
outwit the little beasties and bugs.
This is a practical discussion based on what
we have learned over the last 15 years in the orchard. Some of this is
repeated from elsewhere in the site. If you know of any good sources of
pest control, organic or otherwise, PLEASE let me know on
hayes373(at)btinternet(dot)com and I will put up links or references if
I think the information would be of interest to readers. We
do not claim to be experts and refer you to the literature
(see books, 'The Fruit Expert' is
the best one on pests and diseases). If you don't want all the detail, cut
to the summary of pest and disease management.
here are offender profiles and control advice regarding our main
culprits
WINTER MOTH CATERPILLAR
SCAB
APPLE SAWFLY
APHIDS
CANKER
TWIG CUTTER WEEVIL
BROWN ROT
CODLING MOTH
BIRDS
and an apology and explanation about our
pest control programme-please read with an open mind. We are very
sympathetic to 'organic' philosophies and practices, but we do use
pesticide, responsibly and minimally.
Prevention better than cure
Start with a good tree To
reduce pest and disease problems, start by planting a healthy tree in
humus rich, weed-free soil, in full sunlight. Choose a variety
that is not badly disease prone. Cox is a sickly apple (Queen Cox
is better) and other varieties like Spartan, James Grieve, Red Pippin,
Ribston Pippin and Sunset tend in our soil to be prone
to scab and will not grow well unless sprayed. Some varieties are
naturally
resistant
to scab and other disease-we find Miller's Seedling, Adam's Pearmain,
Court Pendu Plat and Winter King (Winston) have good natural scab
resistance. MUCH more work needs to be done into apple varieties with
natural pest and
disease resistance, preferably before the oil runs much lower and we
can't ship refrigerated Braeburn and Granny Smith apples from half way
round the world any more. The government should fund this public-benefit research-the industry won't as there's no money in it for them. Also, we cannot afford to lose the old
genetic material and regional apple varieties, they may hold secrets we
will need.
Plant in good soil It is
best to plant bare root trees in winter, between leaf fall in November
and bud burst in late March/early April. Many people think it best to
'plant into a warming soil' i.e. right at the end of the winter when
the days are lengthening. This may be the best thing. I advise
against planting container grown trees in summer-if you must do this,
stake the tree, mulch and water heavily.
Whenever you plant your tree or trees, dig a big enough, deep enough
hole, break the soil up, stir in a couple of double handfuls of
composted forest bark, peat or similar (not dung or raw compost-put
that on top as a mulch) and a cup full of bone meal stirred in.
One of you holds the tree straight and level while the other gradually
fills the hole, taking care to make sure the roots are spread as evenly
as possible and the earth is pressed down firmly. Plant about 1-2 cm
deeper than the soil mark, no deeper. Mulch with any organic material
if you can, careful not to spread mulch up against the bark, it will
keep it moist and this may allow rot organisms into the bark. Leave a
gap of 3 inches at least. Staking is
not usually necessary for a small tree, but big trees probably do need
it-be careful not to have too tight a tree tie and check it regularly
so it doesn't cut in and choke the tree as it grows.
Give the trees space
If you are planting more than one tree, do not plant them too close
together. On a typical M26 or MM106 rootstock, 3 metres (10 feet) apart
would be a minimum, 12 feet would be better, unless you plan to dwarf the trees radically from
the start by strict summer pruning e.g. to dwarf pyramids/spspindlebush
trees, when you can get away with 2 metres apart. But it's a lot of extra work. Raymond Bush (see books section) who was an orchard
consultant/troubleshooter said that he never saw an apple tree suffer from being too far from it's neighbour, but he often had to advise growers to grub out
every other tree to restore productivity in orchards where they were
planted too close
together and crowding each other. If trees are too close together so that when they are full
grown the branches touch, circulation of air and penetration of light
is reduced and you get poorer cropping and more fungal problems, plus difficulty moving about the orchard let alone with wheelbarrows orvehicles.
Now for the pests themselves.
I
deal with pests in the order in which they arrive. First, at bud
burst we find several species of winter
moth attacking the leaves and blossom. these are moths which lay
eggs I believe in the late winter, which hatch out into tiny yellow,
green or brown caterpillars which chew the new leaves and blossom. They
are the first of the season's pests which on their own can cause 100%
destruction of the crop plus severe restriction of the tree's growth.
You see leaves curled up at the edge and stuck
to other leaves; if you pick them open you will often find the
caterpillar.
Image- This light green winter moth
caterpillar looks very fat and contented, having destroyed all the
blossom on this fruiting system and damaged many leaves. It's droppings
can be seen on the leaf in the bottom right. It, and the other one,
were squashed with
extreme prejudice seconds after this picture was taken.
They sometimes hang from the tree on spider web type
thread, they often do this when you are trying to catch them. As well
as eating the young leaves, they crawl into the blossom and eat the
protein-rich stamens, obviously this means no fruit that year. CONTROL Some
small birds eat a lot of these, so suitable nesting boxes in your orchard are
a good idea. If you only have a couple of trees, you can catch and
squash the caterpillars. They can be reduced by grease bands, a useful technique
but only suitable if you have few trees. Boltac are a good
make, or you can tie some material round the tree and paint some
Vaseline or other sticky
grease on to it, don't paint grease direct on to the tree, it is bad
for the bark-I've done it, I know. The grease catches the winter moth
females as they crawl up the trunk to lay their eggs. Apply in
September, remove or at least check and refresh in late spring/early
summer. CAUTION forgotten
grease bands, like tree ties, can cut into the tree as it grows-check
them, or tie on with thin elastic. The grease itself may require
touching up. Alternatively, you may
choose to spray with insecticide, 'organic' (such as derris or
nicotine)
or a proprietary 'non-organic' control. Read the instructions and obey
all relevant legislation where you live. More about spray programmes at
the bottom of the page.
Scab this is a miserable
disease which can
destroy the whole crop and eventually kill a tree. It is a fungus which
overwinters on the soil and leaf litter, it 's spores are splashed up
by rain and causes damaging fungal growth on all parts of the
tree-bark, leaf and fruit.
This does not merely reduce the attractiveness of the fruit (although
for the grower this is not
trivial as customers will reject a scabbed apple, whatever Joni Mitchell sang in her protest song Big Yellow Taxi 'Come on farmers, give up the DDT, give me spots on my apples, give me the birds and the bees.' Now I like Joni Mitchell, but she was misleading on this one. DDT was banned years ago as it was persistent and harmed some birds, we use far less toxic and non-persistent compounds and due to the hedges and our generally environmentally friendly approach we have vast numbers of birds and other insects plus grass snakes etc. Dreaming about 'a world in perfect harmony' is cheap and attractive, but customers will NOT accept spotty apples). The
scabbed spots seen on this apple will not stretch as the fruit grows,
so the skin deforms and splits, allowing other spoilage micro-organisms
to enter the
apple, which will then rot. Bad scab on the leaves will stop them
photosynthesising, so the tree will make no growth and any fruit will be
stunted. Chronic or severe scab may cause the tree to develop canker
(see below) and die. This is NOT a minor cosmetic
problem. CONTROL first of all,
avoid varieties which are very prone to scab, Spartan (although an
apple with many plus points, see varieties)
is very prone to scab-if you don't intend to spray fungicide, don't
consider planting this variety. Cox is also out for the same reason.
Secondly, orchard hygiene. remove and
burn, bury or compost all fallen leaves in the winter, rake over the soil under
the tree. Remove any scabbed or fallen fruit (this helps control other
problems
too). We spray fungicides-it's safe and it works, see below.
Sawfly
this is a fly
which lays eggs on fruitlets very early in the season, they hatch out
into a pink caterpillar which burrows into the baby apples and eats
their heart out. You can see a brown mess (frass) coming out of a hole
in the side of a fruit, or a 'scar' curling round the apple. A single
sawfly caterpillar may eat into and destroy all the apples in a
cluster, so it is important to remove and destroy any affected
fruitlets. In an ideal world they would be fed to livestock, but
cutting them open to find the maggot and chopping it in half with
your penknife will do.
I don't have a picture of sawfly frass just now, we have achieved quite
good control of this destructive pest over the years, if I drag one up
from
the archives I will post it. You will easily recognise this when you see it.
Aphids
there are
several types of aphid which suck the sap out of the leaves on apple
trees, the worst by far is the so called 'rosy apple
aphid'. This pest hits from April onwards and is a raspberry pink
colour, hence the name. It attaches itself to the underside of leaves
and sucks the sap. The leaves curl, all the goodness is sucked out, the
twigs curl and the apples get sick. You can tell when you have it
as leaves and twigs curl and
twist, and apples develop a nasty dimpled appearance to the skin and
they STOP GROWING. Typically you see a bunch of small apples on a
deformed branch with curled leaves. There is nothing to do but cut the
affected area off, it will never now do any good. The picture below
from June 2007 shows two typical bunched of deformed and shrivelled
apples and a curled leaf (the vermin hide underneath it) I am holding a
normal apple from
the same tree to show what they should look like.
CONTROL rosyt apple
aphid appears
to be introduced and milked by ants, so grease banding should help
although we haven't tried it, it's not practical with 800 trees.
Ladybird larvae eat aphids, so ladybirds should help, but the ants
fight them off as they are
milking the aphids for their sugary sap. We kill them with
aphid-specific
insecticide. Other
aphids and sap suckers are annoying, but this one is devastating and
should receive zero tolerance. There are some approved (and
non-approved e.g. soapy water) 'organic' sprays available. Companion
planting, biodynamics or singing to the trees does no good-if you have
rosy apple
aphids, death is the answer-kill them all.
Canker
is a bacterial
infection that kills bark, it often seems to affect trees previously
weakened by scab. If it gets all the way round a branch, or indeed the
tree trunk, death is inevitable. CONTROL the only thing you can do is
keep a good look out for it and cut infected wood out, back into clean
wood ASAP. Ideally remove
it immediately from the orchard to prevent spread of
infection and burn it on a hot fire. Good, regular pruning and orchard
hygiene should reduce the problem, but you will probably always get some. Walk
the orchard regularly, and remember 'a
seen canker is a gone canker'.
ZERO tolerance--we hates it for ever! The 2 pictures below show the
point at which the canker has girdled and killed the branch, and the
effect (death of bark, leaves and fruit) further up the branch.
Although it is called canker, it is more like gangrene than human
cancer. If
not controlled it can kill a tree-it has killed many in
our orchard, especially in the early days before we started a minimal spray programme. Sometimes if a canker is half way round the trunk, you can
save the tree by cutting the bark out back into clean wood and painting
with Arbrex wound paint or similar, it's worth a try. Sterilise your tools afterwards. Canker is
sometimes caused by making a big pruning cut too close to the trunk,
leaving a wound too big to heal. Try to avoid this, always leave 2 mm
of wood when pruning back to the trunk. try to avoid making big pruning
cuts by anticipating branches that are going to have to come out and
taking them when they are smaller, during the formative training of
the tree. If you have more than 2 or 3 trees, or if like us you feel that nothing is too good for your trees, get a Silky Fox Gomtaro 300mm graduated tooth apple pruning saw, they cost about £40 but make supremely clean and smooth pruning cuts due to the very superior quality of steel, design and manufacture. Cleaner, more precise cuts=less risk of wound infection. I recommend a short prayer for your hands before unsheathing your Gomtaro, the sharpness of these Japanese saws is terrifying, they will go through a 2cm thick branch with one firm stroke.
Twig
cutter weevil
this exasperating little monster does what it says on the
label. Only one of my books even mentions it, no control is suggested.
we just cuss and put up with it. It is particularly bad on new trees in
nurseries, like the one in the picture here. Half of the newly grafted
trees in my 2007 nursery row had their main leaders cut like the one pictured here,
which
set them back very badly. I was really upset about this-the little
trees had
been coming on beautifully, now the growing central leaders are
destroyed from over half of them and their shapes will be ruined and
they will be set back a year. It is only really a problem in nurseries,
full grown trees don't have much of a problem. Ugly, pointless,
destructive and there's nothing we know to do about it. I think that
next time I graft over a row of trees I will hit hard and frequently
with heavy insecticide-an ugly prospect, but what would you do? I
grafted around 100 trees, 60
or so are now set back very badly. That is a potential economic loss of
£600 at £10 a tree.
Brown rot
This is due to fungus. There is no specific preventive, only good
orchard hygiene as discussed above. Nothing to do but pull the apples
off and get rid of them, ideally by feeding to livestock. Some trees
are more prone to this than others, for example we found the cider
apple variety Crimson King was very badly affected, up to 80% of the
crop
rotted before it was even ripe, while trees of other varieties nearby
were hardly
affected. I couldn't put up with this any longer so I top-grafted all
of
our 8 specimens of this tree over to Dabinett and Harry Master's Jersey
which are nowhere near so badly affected. I
have put up a page on grafting including top grafting which shows how I grafted over the Crimson King to more diseaase resistant varieties. For further information, check out R.J. Garner's classic bok 'The Grafter's
Handbook' (see books.)
PS brown rot isn't at all poisonous and I often crush an affected apple in
my hand (they are semi-liquefied inside) and drink the juice, which is
turning into cider.
Codling moth (apple maggot)
The classic 'apple maggot' or worm is a really horrible little monster which is one
of the pests that can rob you of 100% of your crop. The adult is a dusty grey
moth about 10 mm long which flies and lays its eggs on your apples by
night, usually around the last week of June. It depends on the
weather-it likes warm, dry nights without strong winds. They can come in waves, especially in a funny year like 2007. The moths hatch
out from overwintered larvae which hide in cracks in the bark of big
old trees and such like places. CONTROL first and foremost, look out
for and immediately destroy any maggoty apples each year, July and
August are the main months. Ideally fed them to animals such as
chickens, pigs or horses. If not, cut the
afflicted apples open and squash the maggot and compost the apple, a
really hot compost heap should do the trick also. Don't let them survive to pupate-every maggot
destroyed is one less moth to hatch out and lay eggs on your apples next year. Next, pheromone traps are very handy. They
cost about £6 from garden centres and entice the males into the trap with
a capsule of female codling moth pheromone (sexually attractive scent) where they are caught in a sticky trap.
These are 'organic' but are not a complete solution, they will reduce
the damage but not eliminate it altogether. We, like the mainstream apple industry,
use pheremone traps to find out when the codlings are flying, mating and egg laying to
time our insecticide sprays more precisely. This is part of 'Integrated
Fruit Production (IFP), which is about minimising the use of
pesticides by intelligent targetting. We put the traps up in late May and check them every
few days. When large numbers of moths start to be caught, we hit with
insecticide a week to 10 days later.
Since bats eat moths and fly by night, I suggest that bat boxes might
help. I don't kow of any evdence about which night flyers eat most codling moths or how this useful predation could be optimised-again, nobody's making any money out of bats so we need independent government or charity, not industry, funded research. We must give it a try, we like bats ayway.
This pheromone trap shows the capsule of female codling moth scent and
numerous unlamented victims, lured to their doom like so many sexually
overexcited beings before them (as per Sirens in Odyssey, also foolish
young man lured by adulteress in chapter 7 of the Book of
Proverbs 'seduced by her
charms...into the house he goes...he does not know
that it will cost him his life').
Bird damage. Of
course we all want birds in our orchards, we have lots partly because
of all the hedgerows we have planted, but while some eat apple pests,
others eat apples.
There isn't much we can do about it. Of course it's less of a problem
in a garden where you can put alternative nibbles up for them, but with
800 trees on 5 acres surrounded by fields, hedges, woodland and
coppice, we have a full
range of all sorts of bird. We think that Jays, Magpies and various crows and rooks are probably the worst. It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't start so early. They
are particularly bad on the Lord Lambournes, and most years destroy
between a quarter and a third of the crop-it's as bad as income tax. Occasional trees suffer
complete loss of fruit. Yes, we have tried wind chimes, CDs etc. We
have
not tried bangers or other loud noises as this would understandably
annoy our neighbours. The only thing that worked quite well for
2 or 3 weeks was hanging up a dead crow on a 10 foot pole. That kept them away. It's like
the old farmers seed-sowing proverb 'one
for the rook, one for the
crow, one to rot, one to grow'. Here is an apple destroyed by
birds,
note also the scab on the leaf in the bottom left of the picture.
'Time would fail me' if I were to tell of greengage gobbling badgers,
bark-nibbling and apple store invading mice and voles (oh how I wish we had some big, hungry adders!),
leaf curling
midge, blossom wilt, powdery mildew, apple (and nut) stealing grey
squirrels, deer which will scoff up a newly planted apple sapling like
a hungry 10 year old kid scoffs an ice cream on a hot August day, red
spider mite-we even had a plague of drunken teenagers one night when we
were out of the country, and although it only took me 4 hours to clear
up their mess (there were enough empty cans and bottles I calculated
for 80 people to have got falling down drunk, to say nothing of the
dope we also found evidence of) left Julia distressed for 2 years. Nevertheless, our orchard is
beautiful and getting more so, and we often have honest and grateful
friends round for barbecues and sleep overs. The next new page I am
going to make and put up after this one will be 'Durley Orchard Beauty'.
So, yes, pests and diseases exist and can extort a heavy toll, and thinking beautiful thoughts doesn't help here any more than acupuncture cures pneumonia. I hope this dose of unpleasant reality doesn't put you off growing apples. It's really worthwhile and you CAN do it, this is
just to offer a bit of help and reassurance with the difficulties. If
you have just a few trees in your garden or community orchard and take
minimal action e.g. healthy tree first and foremost, mulch with compost, wise and sensitive
pruning, remove rotten fruit, grease banding (watch those ties!) and a
pheromone trap, you should get away with a half decent crop most years.
If you want to sell your fruit though, it is a different matter and you
will have to spray whether you like it or not.
After trying our best from the start
to be fully 'organic', we decided to start spraying pesticide in the
third year
of the project after weeds, pests and diseases all but overwhelmed our early planting. The trees looked like they had been riddled with
shotgun fire (winter moth holes in EVERY leaf) and showered with slurry (every leaf stained with scab). We picked
200lb of apples from 250 young trees, a sixth of what the harvest
should have
been, and 90% of those had maggots.
The vermin had smelled the scent of our apples and flown in from all
around. If we had not started spraying then we would have had to give the
project up, there would be rich people's horses there now instead of our orchard and some of the rare fruits we grow would be several clicks
nearer extinction. We did the right thing.
Our research and experience convinces us that in
21st
century UK, while it is next to impossible to make money growing apples
WITH effective pest control, (and then only with unique selling point,
direct sales and strong repeat custom) there is absolutely NO CHANCE
without effective pest control. I am familiar with, and sypathetic to, the philosophies of
the organic movement, 'look after the soil
and it will look after the plant-prevent problems rather than try to
cure them-work with nature not against her-etc, etc'.
Unfortunately, the various pests and diseases listed above are unaware
of these philosophies. They just want to take over your apple for their purposes. Companion planting, garlic sprays, biodynamics etc just don't work. Crop rotation works very well to prevent pest and disease build up in annual crops like leeks and potatoes, but is of course impossible with a long lived permacuture plant like apples. There are 'organic' sprays, and if they
were better I would use them, but I can't see the point of preferring on principle a
chemical that came directly from a plant over one that came from a plant (or the aged plant and amnimal breakdown product we call oil) via a
factory,
especially if the latter has been subjected to much stricter testing. It seems to me that a lot of 'organic' philosophy is more akin to New Age or Wicca than plant science. I don't mind adherents of the organic philosophy daydreaming, but I do mind them sowing discord based on bad or no science against decent farmers who are trying to make an honest living growing good food, and who have to control pests to allow them to do so. This-like all conflict-is a waste of energy/ Sire;ly both sides shoudl agree that more research into lower impact plant pest and disease management should be done, but in the meantime let's make a distinction between what we might wish to be true in an ideal world and what happens (see my pictures above) in the world we actually live in.
Pesticide use is highly regulated and growers can be fined heavily for
overdosing their fruit or improper disposal. Every bottle of pesticide we buy must be stored securely, written in a
book, details of each use recorded, and there is a 'harvest interval'
for example 30 days between last permissible spray and harvesting. This
specified period of time when wind, sun, rain and dew pass over the
fruit ensures
that there are usually no pesticide residues, as is confirmed by the
regular testing which is done. We are sure that the government 'mystery
buyer'
visits our stalls and tests our fruit, and will prosecute and fine the
living
daylights out of us if our fruit contains significant pesticide
residues. I had to do a fairly exacting 2 day course at Sparsholt
agricultural college and pass an exam (cost me over £200 in all,
plus loss of earnings for the time off)
before I was allowed to use even a backpack sprayer with the commercial
chemicals. We take the Fruit Grower magazine which keeps us up to date
for
example which products have been withdrawn in the ever tougher search
for things which are more environmentally friendly. I believe the
science shows these chemicals are safe when used safely.
The organic movement allows copper sulphate to be used to control
fungus-however, but copper is INORGANIC and is a persistent metal
poison. It's safe if used safely, we use it, but there is a little bit of bending the
rules here-for the simple reason that there is no 'organic' control of
fungal disease, which as I have said can wipe out an entire year's crop
and ultimately kill the tree. And if we are going to talk about the
'precautionary principle' or 'cocktail effect' (both are scaremongering evidence-free
catch phrases which ignore the fact that as chemical pest control has made
fruit more widely available, we have become healthier and are living
longer). Also, if you want to invoke the 'precautionary principle', then what about the possibility that maggot poo or scab
spores (both perfectly natural-as natural as bubonic plague and bowel
cancer) don't cause some harm? Can you prove they don't? We ar eliving longer-that's a hard, measurable fact. If someone identifies a scientifically proven incidence of a disease which is caused by eating sprayed fruit, believe me they will have my attention.
But what about the 'good old days' before there were sprays? Well, I have books proviong that pesticides have been sprayed on apple trees for over 100 years-because of the pests and diseases described above. During that time, fruit consumption has risen and life expectancy has roughly doubled. Good old days? Growing apples, in England's wet
climate anyway, without pesticide is like having a family and raising children
without contraception, vaccination or antibiotics-it CAN be done, people used to do
it, still do it in some countries, but if you 'go with nature' you must be
prepared to accept what nature deals out. Yes, in the past there were no
sprays, and people accepted scabby, maggoty apples and fewer of them,
for a shorter season, since there was no choice. Similarly,
in the past there were no vaccines against diptheria, tetanus etc and no antibiotics,
people accepted the routine death of children from infectious diseases
as that was what happened. Couples would have 6 children in the hope
that at least 3
would survive childhood and live to provide for them in their old age.
Think it through-what do we mean by 'natural' and is it always wrong to
'interfere with nature'? We are living longer than ever before, there
are many reasons for this, but a major one is better and more fruit and
vegetables-achieved in large measure by modern pest and disease control. I go on about this as there is a large and well connected movement which wants to ban all pesticides as it would be more 'natural'. Ask them to produce facts, not philosophies.
SUMMARY A simple spray programme would
be as follows (I do not advise on
specific products). This is a bit less than we do, but should give you
80% control or better of all the major problems.
bud burst (usually early April)
combined insecticide and fungicide (if you want to be 'organic', copper
and derris are suggested)
post blossom-same again. Omit
the fungicide if it is a dry year and no sign of scab. Never spray
insecticide when the blossom is out for fear of harming bees, but if
there is bad scab, spray fungicide alone during the blossom if
necessary, this won't hurt the bees.
Midsummer set a pheromone trap
in mid-May, spray insecticide 7-10 days after the first big batch of
codling moths, use your judgement to decide whether to add a fungicide
to this one
You should do very well with this regime, a grease band and orchard
hygiene as discussed above will help too. Don't worry, the apple is a
generous fruit and you can afford some losses if you are just growing
for your family, but do remember to cut out and destroy diseased wood
and fruit to stop problems building up from year to year, and give the
tree a good feed and mulch. Just as malnutrition in humans increases
the risk of oppportunistic infections, so a healthy growing tree will
be less susceptiple to attack.
..........................................................................................................................
No offense intended if you object to all sprays on principle, however
facts are facts. We wish we didn't
need to spray, but this isn't the Garden of Eden. We threw away a ton of Bramley this year as it rained so long and we couldn't spray against scab in the rain-we brought about a tenth of our Bramley crop to market, sold them half price as they were so badly marked by fungus, and left the rest in the orchard to compost. Finally, ye Greens, remember.....
'Mother
Nature' doesn't care whether you live or die.
PS it's wise to wash outdoor grown fruit before eating it, since a
bird may have done a poo on it, which might conceivably contain
salmonella or other pathogen. We do not wash our fruit between orchard and market, this would diminish it's keeping qualities and increase costs for no real gain. Obviously, we would never pick an apple
for market with visible bird droppings on it, but the rain might
have
washed visible signs off and left an invisible trace of bird poo. This
doesn't bother
us, as
Jack Hargreaves and other countrymen
say 'a bit of honest dirt never hurt anybody' and
we eat more of our apples than any of our customers do, but the risk of
'natural' stomach infection from unwashed raw apple is slightly above
zero, so do wash it. There is no need however to peel the apple
skin, even for babies, as
there is no evidence that any possible pesticide residues in apples
(there ought not to be any anyway) weighs anything against the
UNDOUBTED PROVEN health benefits of eating this excellent fruit. There are various natural flavour compounds in apple skin which I have heard, and tend to believe, have health benefits.
Again, I am all ears on hayes373(at)btinternet(dot)com if anyone has
any good sites or proven tips to manage apple pest and disease problems.
October 2007
return to menu