A spray of an approved insecticide should be applied promptly at petal fall if damaging infestations are detected.
- A full approval for spirotetramat (Batavia) on apples for the control of sucking insect pests will offer some control of common green capsid, 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’.
- Other novel insecticides recently approved for control of aphids on apple and/or pear in the UK may have useful activity against capsid bugs including acetamiprid (Gazelle) and flonicamid (Mainman).
In other European countries in the past, mineral oil was applied just before bloom to kill the eggs just before emergence at around 200 day-degrees above 4 deg C after 1 January.
- This was effective but timing was crucial.
- Late application resulted in leaf burning and application too early was not effective.
- A local application was advised in places where damage by the capsids often occurred.