Booooo
My Tomcot made four fruits and all are riddled with curc bites. When you have only a dozen apricots in your whole orchard, and the same number of curcs as a normal year show up, they have a party on those couple fruits 
This year I decided to be more careful about picking up the falls, usually its a best effort when I have some free time thing. I just picked up about 50 infested fruits, so 50 fewer curcs down the road 
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Exactly 249 growing degree days since my first codling moth catch means it is time to spray spinosad and Bt. (250 GGD50 is the recommendation).
I made my most complicated tank mix so far tonight. 2 gallons of the following:
2 oz/gal of Monterey Spinosad
4 tsp/gal of Thuricide Bt kurstaki
1 oz/gal of Sulfur
5 mL/gal of NuFilm 17 as sticker/extender
~25 ppm of monosodium glutamate (Accent food seasoning)
I’m not bagging as many apples this year as last. I might bag a few more yet, but I want to trial spraying this year.
I sprayed all my trees except non-bearing cherries with the mix. I also made sure to spray the plum on peach and peach trunks with the mix since I noticed boring insects were on the label of the spinosad. Surely it isn’t nearly as effective as lorsban, but it is better than nothing.
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Yeah, i am using plastic coated cable. The posts are sitting in light duty anchors that got 18 inches into the ground. No concrete necessary.
My young (3 yr) Asian pear dropped its only fruit today. I guess this won’t be the year after all. But maybe next year!
There are still a lot of flowers on my persimmons (also 3yr), but I’m worried that they’re all going to abort too, especially since I’ve been reading they do that when there’s a lot of water. Still, fingers crossed. This could still be the year!
Looking’ good! I do a similar tank but include Surround and leave out the Nufilm. My first generation CM is overlapping with PC which is why I include Surround in the early CM sprays (it also provides further CM control). I am a bit surprised you are not still having PC bites, maybe its climate-related. More recently I have had stinkbug problems on apples so I am keeping the Surround going longer. I also usually put out mating disruption, but this year I decided to try without it and see how things went. I found a few more infested fruits than usual, but no tidal wave. I am going to put out disruption for the 2nd generation, that one is a bigger problem for me.
Oh, I am also using CM granulosis along with the spinosad. Also I am experimenting with Regalia this year, a new organic disease preventative. My vague impression from the studies is it is a notch better than Serenade which I find is often on the too-weak side. It works well in combination with sulphur. The one downside with my spray this year is a few apples got sunburn, due to the Surround washing off and the sun blasting them, or the sulphur, or a combination.
This is an opportunity for us to fill the void, but ours are usually spoken for already. Looks like we will be the number 2 peach producer this year. Our crop is fine here in Michigan. We are usually 6th behind the southern states and CA. This happens from time to time, has happened before, will happen again.
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NY is feeling like Seattle: cool wet weather, lush spring growth, cherries are rotting.
Scott, your guess is as good as mine. I haven’t had many PC bites these two years. Though it isn’t like they aren’t in my orchard, because I found an adult in the bag with my picked peaches last year.
It is possible that I don’t have high PC pressure. But that seems unlikely, as there are wild plums about 200 yards from my house, and my dad’s fruit a dozen miles away got hammered last year before he started spraying for them at my recommendation. It is also possible I stopped putting on Surround too soon. I still had maybe 1/3 of my previous spray left on my trees last night when I sprayed last night. We will see.
I do know that the Cornell (NEWA) model says I shouldn’t have to spray any more for PC. I thought it was probably bunk, but then again their codling moth model was only early by 2 days relative to my trap catches.
I’m not seeing PC marks here, either. Very strange. Some CM stings, but the bagging should take care of that now.
Even the drops from the apricots are free of PC marks.
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This is what I wrote yesterday and then we had a rain early morning today. 
This is a crazy spring, even in California.
How much, 0.2"?
0.08" according to a nearby Weather Underground station. Just enough to keep all weeds growing for at least another month.
Not much dilution there…lol I think you’re still on track…!!
My main worry is that I pruned my cherry trees a couple days ago (there was no rain in the forecast). I hope the cherries don’t get canker because of this shower.
2017 has been the year I decided it was appropriate to start planting toward my retirement. I will retire in about 4 1/2 years and most of what I have planted will be producing by then or within a few years of then. I continue to plant as we speak and have a few more things in mind. Right now I have planted a dozen Elderberry, 2 All in one almond, a Casina Filbert and. Barcelona Filbert, 2 Giant Hardy Pecan and one Surecrop pecan, 4 flowering Robinson crabapple, am making a nice windbreak on my field by starting to line the west side of it with hybrid willows. I have some of my land that stays wet some it seemed the perfect way to get 3 weeping willows in. On my hill which really helps, I believe, because my soil isn’t that great I planted all of my fruit trees. It’s not real severe but I think it helps. There I put two July Elberta peach, one Stark delicious and when they come back in I’m going to try a Giant White. I did two cherry. One Strak Rimson and a heliphineger, sorry, not sure about the spelling on that one. Three fig, 2 being LSU purple and one as of yet identified. 2 pear, one Bartlett and one Stark Delicous, 3 apple one Anna, one Pink Lady, one Stark Delicous. I also planted a dozen Oichita thornless blackberry and 6 thornless triple crown. I have 2 Illinois Everbearing Mulberry that will be here Friday, planted Saturday. I am also going to do 2 Goji berry in a few weeks. I’m going to do some Cleveland white pear up my drive when they come back in. I am soooooooooo excited to have begun this journey I’ve just been reading and talking endlessly about it with everyone I can. I truly believe perciverance and knowledge will guide me well and I am so happy to be in this community of growers. Sometime soon I have about 5-6 acres I am going to start planting with vegetables that hopefully I can start with easy care type" my land isn’t where I live right now" I am there 2-3 days a week so I need some advice on some things that I can get going that don’t require constant care and may not be real easy access for animals in my days absent. Any suggestions would be awesome. Here are a bunch of my current plantings
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And if anyone might see anything at all in these pictures that looks wrong, looks right, looks like it could be better PLEASE I will take all worthy suggestions! This is my first shot at any serious growing and I’ll accept all the help and advice I can get. Damn…this is what it’s all about IMO…
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Missed my elderberries
And the field I’ve readied for vegetable… my crabapple and pecan are planted on the one end of this field and I planted the whole thing in Bahia grass this past weekend for an erosion cover just in case…
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Going to be a lot of work!