A spray of an approved insecticide should be applied if damaging infestations occur in spring.
- The synthetic pyrethroid insecticide deltamethrin (Decis Forte) is recommended for control of suckers on apple, but the use of this class of insecticide should be avoided if at all possible as they are harmful to the orchard predatory mite, Typhlodromus pyri, as well as a wide range of other natural enemies.
- A full approval for spirotetramat (Batavia) on apples for the control of sucking insect pests may offer some control of apple sucker, but growers may prefer to reserve its use for more difficult to control pests such as woolly aphid or rosy apple aphid. It must be applied after flowering and works best when pests are moving from brown wood to green tissue. It will prevent population build-up but does not offer pest ‘knockdown’.
- The bioinsecticide fatty acids (Flipper) has an EAMU approval for use on apples (3419/19). It is effective at controlling sucking insect pests such as aphids, whitelfy and mites, so is likely to offer some incidental control of apple sucker when applied for other pests. It is known to complement the use of Batavia as it provides quick ‘knockdown’. Its safety to beneficial insects such as Typhlodromus pyri is unknown, but it is generally safe to many other predators and parasitoids, so is considered to be more suitable to IPDM programmes than the synthetic pyrethroids.