MALATHION KILLS BEES — STOP USING IT!
Q I have two questions to ask, if you would be so kind as to reply. First, a friend of ours uses malathion on his apple trees, once before flowers appear and then once again after the fruit appears. He claims never to have apple maggots. What is your opinion of the use of this pesticide to control apple maggots? We have put up the red balls on all our trees but still get ‘railway’ tracks in some of our apples. Also, will malathion affect bees in any way? Second, while we hung the red balls on all of the trees, one of them grows out of the lawn, and last year we noticed that the apples were about six inches in diameter but rotten along the core. Would this be because we fertilize the lawn too close to the apple tree? The fruit was large and we had many large leaves on the tree.
A: Malathion is highly toxic to bees. I advise you tell your friend to read the warnings at the Government of Alberta Agriculture website. If we continue to poison our bees there will not be any apples left to enjoy because we will have lost our main pollinators. I strongly urge you and your friend not to use malathion on your apple trees.
There is another issue with using older malathion as well. It has a very short shelf life, and Health Canada is advising Canadians to stop using pesticides that contain malathion when products are older than one year due to chemical changes in the product over time.
Unfortunately, the only treatment we have at our disposal now is the use of the bait balls. Don’t let any apples that fall linger on the ground, and keep up your use of the balls.
As for your question about the rotting in the core of the apples, this may still be a result of the apple maggot. As the maggots tunnel through the apple the flesh begins to break down and rot. There are pathogens that can cause rot in apples, but my best guess is that this is still an apple maggot issue.
Q I’m so glad that you recently addressed irises, as I have had several problems for the past four years with my irises refusing to bloom. Could you tell me when is the best time to raise them up to the proper level? Will they bloom the same year I do this? Do you recommend any particular method or products that you have found successful? Thank you very much for addressing my concerns. A: Since your irises are not blooming anyway, you can raise them to the proper level as soon as the ground is workable. However, you may want to wait until later in the spring to raise them, just in case they decided to bloom this year. If you do decide to raise them early in the spring I don’t think they will bloom for you this season, but never say never with Mother Nature. The method is simple. Use your spade to dig down as deeply as possible. Once you are at the bottom of the roots, lift the rootball out and lay it next to the hole. You now have the opportunity to enrich the soil in the planting hole. I would mix a good quality loam with compost at a 50-50 ratio.
Lay this mix into the bottom of the hole at the new depth and replace the rootball, checking to make sure it is not too deeply planted again. Next, firm up the soil around the plant and give them a good drink of water.