Peachtree Borer
A clearwing moth that looks like a wasp. Its larva feeds under the bark at the base of the trunk, and you find gummy sap mixed with sawdust right at the soil line.
Pest checklist
Four things to look for. If most of them match what you are holding, you are in the right place.
What gets rid of them
Gentlest option first. For most backyard cases the first one is enough, so try these in order and stop as soon as it works. If you do spray something, the product label tells you how — please read the notice further down.
1Keep the trunk base bare and visible
Pull mulch, weeds and piled soil back from the trunk so you can see the bark, and check it every few weeks all summer.
Try this first2Dig the borer out
In fall or early spring, follow the gum with a stiff wire or a knife tip and kill the larva in its tunnel. On a young tree this is the most reliable fix there is.
3Trunk treatment during the flight
If you treat, soak the lower trunk and the soil line with an insecticide labeled for borers during the mid-summer flight. This is a trunk treatment, not a foliage or fruit spray.
4Stop wounding the trunk
String trimmer and mower nicks are how the moths find a tree, so keep a wide mulch ring or a trunk guard around the base.
tree trunk protector guard5Hang a pheromone trap to time it
A borer pheromone trap tells you when adults are actually flying instead of guessing at a calendar date.
peachtree borer pheromone trap
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Which plants get peachtree borer
Every plant we cover that gets peachtree borer, grouped by type — tap any one to open its page. A note beside a plant came from that plant’s own entry, because the same pest can be a minor nuisance on one plant and a serious problem on another. Plenty of plants we do not cover get it too.
Plant families hit hardest
Related plants often share the same problems, so if one plant in a family has it, check the others. The largest group here is Rosaceae, with 5 of the 5 affected plants.
- Rosaceae5 plants
When to treat
Preventive timing. Adults fly from June into September with a July to August peak, so trunk treatments go on in that window. Once a young trunk is girdled all the way around, the tree is gone and nothing brings it back.
Timing only — the label is the law
This page tells you when to watch for peachtree borer and when treating is worth considering. It is not a recommendation to apply any particular product. Read and follow the product label before you spray — under federal law the label is the legal instruction, and using a pesticide against it is illegal.
- Check the pre-harvest interval. Every product that’s cleared for an edible crop sets a minimum number of days between spraying and picking. Find it on the label before you spray anything you intend to eat.
- Check the re-entry interval before you or anyone else works in the treated area again, and use the protective equipment the label names.
- Confirm the product is registered for your crop in your state. This page groups many different crops together, and a product legal on one of them is not legal on all of them — state registrations differ too. Your state pesticide agency or local extension office can confirm both.
- Rates and mixing instructions come from the label, never from us. We don’t publish them because they differ by product and formulation.
Other problems on the same plants
If a plant gets peachtree borer, these are the problems it most often gets as well, so they are worth checking for while you are out there. They tend to appear together; one does not cause another.