How to Identify and Control Apple Maggots

Us gardeners tend not to like sharing our fruits and vegetables, especially not with wriggling maggots, and least of all when we find them in one of our favorite types of produce: apples.

Unfortunately, flies like Rhagoletis pomonella don’t ask before they lay their eggs on your fruit, so we don’t have much say in whether their larvae chow down or not.

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There are a variety of ways to stop these pests before they can get to your orchard fruits, and you’ll discover them in this guide.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Apple maggots are a major threat to Malus domestica, but these pests will also attack crabapple, hawthorn, pear, plum, cherry, and cotoneaster plants.

They are native to the eastern United States and Canada, but this species has migrated west and become a serious pest from coast to coast in North America.

In areas where the eggs were laid on the fruit, you’ll see a little dimple. As the larvae feed inside, infested fruit becomes distorted, inedible, pitted, misshapen, rotten, and discolored.

The adult flies emerge throughout the summer and are present from July to September, with populations peaking in late July and early August.

They can be confused with codling moth larvae (Cydia pomonella), and online searches for photos of R. pomonella damage will often turn up pictures of incorrectly labeled codling moth damage.

But codling moths create tunnels through the fruit, leave frass pellets behind, and their larvae have distinct head capsules and six legs – unlike the larvae of Rhagoletis pomonella.

They also grow to 20