What Those Bands on Fruit Trees Do in New York

You might notice strange-looking bands on fruit trees in New York.  If you do see one, leave it there.  Someone put it there for a purpose.

Anyone who has tried to grow a garden knows how difficult it can be to keep pests out.  They just love to snack on whatever it is that you're growing.  There are plenty of ways to deal with them.  Some will just put up protective barriers around their crops, but that's not always possible.  Some will just kill the pests with traps.  Others prefer to spray their fruits and vegetables with something that makes it less attractive to the pest.  But which one is right for you?

You might begin seeing bands that look like electric wires wound around the limb of a tree. Those simple bands are there to stop the pests from multiplying.

The strange bands are called pheromone bands

They're called pheromone bands, and their goal is to keep organic fruit moths from multiplying. Unlike grease bands, which stop insects from crawling up the tree and feasting on the fruit, these bands are meant to disrupt the mating cycle of moths. The Gettysburg National Military Park posted on its Facebook page to explain why it has them in its trees.

These bands emit the same chemical signals that female moths use to attract mates. This overabundance of pheromones around the tree floods the male moths’ senses, limiting their ability to locate a mate, disrupting their mating cycle, and significantly reduces the number of destructive moth larvae produced - Gettysburg National Military ParkNBew

They're there to simply stop them from procreating.  This way, they don't have to spray, they don't have to set up traps, and they don't have to worry about pests eating the fruit from their trees.  So if you see them on fruit trees in New York, that's why they're there.