learned something new about caterpillars. they’re apparently muscular enough to force their way through the cross-shaped straw hole in the lid of a plastic cup. darned bugger escaped and is probably pupating somewhere in my house.
AWOL, SMH.
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Harvested the most tasty loquats from 3rd year established trees that I have not watered in over a year. Taste was an amazing balance of acid and sweet. Also had a sauzee swirl that was decent for being off a first year tree (watered well weekly).
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Fire warning weather here - in April!
I sprayed my father’s peach trees with Imidan and Indar today. First time using Imidan. We will see how it works.
I put the first layer of Surround on my peaches and the Hosui Pear that has gone through petal fall. Forecast for hot weather, which will bring out the PC.
Has anyone had experience with pears that have the obvious crescent scar from the PC but are able to outgrow the damage? Last year I waited to spray Surround on my New Century Pear and had the crescent scars but the pears continued to grow and ended up fine. Is this normal?
Pretty normal. Pear and apple fruit grow fast enough they tend to (but not always) crush the PC larva, which just leaves a scar.
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If anyone has any doubts whatsoever about the effectiveness of bending limbs down, I submit this photo. This is a honey crisp apple tree. In spite of it being a fairly large 4 year old tree, it just wouldn’t bloom for me. I was starting to think it had some kind of strange problem or it would have been blooming by now, so last fall I tied a limb down quite low to the ground. Can you spot which limb I tied down? 
The only blooms on the tree this year are on the limb I tied down, and boy is it COVERED. Yea, limb bending works. I wonder If I can tie the whole tree down now? ha
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Kevin,
Would you please consider creating a new thread about branch bending and irs usefulness using this pic?
We have so many new forum members that could benefit from your experience. Don’t hide this evidence here 
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Sure! You know, before I posted this I did a quick search for “limb bending” and “limb tying” to see if there was a thread this would fit into. There were several that were somewhat related, but none that fit too well, so it might be worth making one just for that purpose. Good suggestion.
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Your thread will come with a pic to show clear contrast of bending vs non- bending on the same tree!!!
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Improved Duarte plum was grafted a few months ago to my 15 in one Franken plum tree, it is already producing fruit!
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Click on photo above to zoom in.
Nice tag.Brady
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excellent
I’ve done Low Stress Training with pepper plants to great effect. The number of bud sites are very high for this size of plant and the vigor is impressive. Spreading out the canopy really lets the plant use all of the leaves it has produced and is supporting. It also allows light down to the lower branches and promotes inner growth.
I’ve also used LST on my recently acquired Calamondin bush rather than pruning it. It was very compact and crowded in the centre with many of the inner branches beginning to be stunted. I’ve since opened it up and the plant has started to develop those branches again. Today I found that one branch has some small flowers developing on it which is exciting.
On either side of the Calamondin are some more LST plants
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Fascinating! Who knew peppers could benefit from this!?! (well, you did!).
BTW…we did create a new thread about branch bending so you might want to post this there- up to you.
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my buddy that grows medicinal cannabis does this. never thought of trying it on other plants. makes sense!
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I think any plant that tends to grow upright and shade out the internal and lower branches can benefit from having the canopy spread out a bit.
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watering the mudhole for the mason bees. I want them busy visiting my blooming trees, not flying all over looking for mud
Hope we get the promised rain tonite
interesting. i wonder if the better-budding-through-plant-bending works not only as a function of increased sunlight, but primarily due to altered hormonal signals.
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