Greetings,

After a long stretch of following daily oriental fruit moth captures, we’ve set a biofix date of April 22 for both Winchester and Rappahannock county.  This year was more challenging than most, given that flight started and then stopped for multiple days on more than one occasion during April. This is the latest oriental fruit moth biofix date (by 2 days) that we’ve seen in Winchester since 2000, reflecting the slow warm-up this year but also highlighting the usefulness of biofix and degree-day models initiated at biofix to accommodate annual variations in weather. We caught our first codling moth last night (May 1), anticipate more during this warm week, and will keep you apprised of biofix for it and for tufted apple budmoth. Our twice weekly postings of degree day accumulations, percent egg hatch, and management timing recommendations will begin this week.

Until next time, best wishes.