Do you have any kind of spray to control acorn weevils? We collect acorns, hickory and walnuts and we get tiny white maggots crawling out even though we bag them and freeze them for weeks. I also think we have walnut husk flies. We like to use them for ornaments we hand craft but the maggots are nasty.
Acorn weevils and a range of husk flies will target nuts in mid summer. Adults lay eggs on the young nuts which are then contained inside the developing blossom. At some point in the summer the larvae hatch and feed well protected by the nuts outer shell. Once they get their fill, they “drill” out leaving small exit holes.
When fall arrives and nuts naturally drop to the ground, many will have exit holes but many more will still have active larvae who have not yet exited. These must be the ones you’re finding in your bagged collection.
Trying to spray the nuts once you collect them would not be practical since the insecticide won’t penetrate the nut. And freezing won’t kill them either. True, many will go dormant but this will not solve the problem.
So how can you treat to end the issue?
Continue to bag them. This way anything hatching will be “contained” inside the bag.
But also spray them with MULTIPURPOSE INSECT KILLER. It’s odorless, water based and easy to apply. Spray for 2-3 seconds and quickly seal the bag. Anything hatching in the next week will likely die and if you’re adding nuts once a week, keep treating it every time.
Now once the bag is what you consider “full”, don’t stop treating. So once you’re ready to store it, plan on treating it once a month until you use them.
Now if the trees you’re harvesting the nuts from are on your property, consider treating them with PROTHOR. This product can be mixed with water and used as a soil drench around any nut tree. Over a 2-3 month period, it will be picked up and absorbed by the tree and then distributed to its leaves and nuts. Anything trying to eat the nuts will then die.
Plan on drenching every 3 months, 3 times a year. And use 1 oz per 10″ of tree width. So if your tree is 20″ wide, you’d need at least 2 oz of active. A 5 gallon bucket is a great size to use for the drench. Fill it with 3-4 gallons of water and then add the chemical. Next, pop 8-10 holes around the trunk of the tree. These holes can be made with a pick ax or a piece of 1/2″ or 3/4″ rebar. Holes should be no closer than 2 feet to the main trunk and inside the drip line. Slowly pour the mixed chemical into the holes making sure it all seeps down into the soil around the tree.
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