Conker fights in Shropshire playgrounds could soon be a thing of the past – because of destruction being caused to horse chestnut trees by a hitch-hiking moth.

The UK is set to be in for a bumper crop of conkers this autumn, thanks to the warm spring and wet summer encouraging the trees to come into fruit two weeks earlier than the benchmark seasonal average.

But this early crop faces a threat from the horse chestnut leaf miner, which was first found in the UK on horse chestnut trees in London and in places along the M40 corridor.

The moth was first found in Britain in 2002, in the London borough of Wimbledon. Over the last few years its range has expanded north, travelling between 40 to 60km annually, with evidence suggesting it has arrived after hitching lifts inside cars.

The larvae of the tiny creature burrows within the leaf tissue, with heavy infestations resulting in leaf browning and drying and, over time, death.

Steve Marsh, of the Woodland Trust, said that the moth had spread from the south east of England up through the Midlands, Shropshire and Wales, and had been found as far north as Yorkshire.

He said the trust had received a massive increase in queries regarding the colouring or browning of horse chestnut trees.

Mr Marsh said: “The horse chestnut arrived in this country from Turkey 400 years ago and is now a common feature in many of the UK’s ancient woods, parks and roadsides, and has been a playground favourite for many years.

“However, thanks to the leaf miner, trees with a heavy infestation may struggle to produce enough nutrients to grow good-sized horse chestnuts and so school playgrounds across the UK may end up bereft of conker fights.”

A spokesman for Forest Research, the research arm of the Forestry Commission, which is carrying out a major study into the long-term effect of the leaf miner on conker trees said the moth was known to have entered Shropshire.

The leaf miner was first observed in northern Greece in 1985. Since then it has spread throughout central and Eastern Europe.