Codling Moth Trap

If you grow apples or pears and you're sick of finding maggots tunnelling through what should have been a perfect harvest, this is the trap that gives you a fighting chance. The Codling Moth Trap is a pheromone monitoring trap designed to hang in fruit trees and tell you exactly when codling moths are active, so you can take action at the right time instead of guessing.

It works on the same principle as the indoor moth traps. The trap releases a synthetic version of the female codling moth pheromone, which draws male moths in. They land on a sticky board inside the trap and stay there. Once you start seeing moths in the trap, you know the females are out laying eggs and it's time to act, whether that means spraying, applying a biological control like codling moth granulosis virus, or fitting sticky bands round the trunk.

The trap itself is built for life outdoors. It's fully waterproof, holds up to wind, rain, and the full British summer, and can be hung straight from a branch using the supplied wires. Setup takes about five minutes. Each trap covers a generous 500 to 700m², which is enough for a typical garden, a small orchard, or several allotment plots, and stays effective for up to 2 months per pheromone refill.

It's completely pet, wildlife, and bird safe. No insecticide, nothing for non target species to bother with, and nothing harmful in or around the trap.

The pack is designed to give you a full season's monitoring out of the box: one trap, two glueboards, two pheromone lures, and two hanging wires. That's enough to swap the lure and board mid season as the original starts to fade, keeping the trap working effectively right through peak moth activity.

A note on timing. Codling moths fly from around May to September in the UK, with two generations of moths in warmer southern areas. To get the most out of the trap, hang it in your tree by late April so you're ready before the first flight starts, and check it weekly through the season.

A note on how to use it properly. This is primarily a monitoring trap. On a single garden apple tree, the trap on its own will catch enough males to make a real dent in damage. For a small orchard or several trees, treat it as your early warning system and pair it with one of the codling moth treatments above to actually protect the fruit. It tells you when to act; what you do with that information is what determines the size of next year's clean harvest.

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