Types

• The peach tree borer and lesser peach tree borer are immature clear wing moths. The adult peach tree borer looks like a blue-black wasp, while the mature lesser peach tree borer is blue-black with clear wings and light yellowish markings. Other borer insects include the shothole borer and the flatheaded apple tree borer, both larval beetles.
  
  

Effects

• Peach tree borers burrow deep below the surface to get to the inner sapwood. Lesser peach tree borers eat new bark growth. Shothole borers and flathead appletree borers feed on the cambrium, which is the soft tissue between the bark and the wood. Borers damage and kill trees by destroying the bark all the way around a tree in a process called girdling, which cuts off the nutrient supply, or by destroying the heartwood.
  
  

Prevention/Solution

• Remove and destroy trees that are seriously infested with peach tree borers. Control lesser peach tree borers with pheromone or hormone-based traps and appropriate pesticides. Prevent shothole borer and flathead appletree borer damage by watering, fertilizing and cultivating the tree regularly to keep it healthy.