So, I’m using Surround for the 1st time now that I’ve noticed my few apples with PC strikes. I’m trying to apply it with a hand spray bottle, and I’m having trouble estimating how much Surround to add to the bottle and how much I need to apply to the fruits.
It seems most of what hits the fruit runs off, so I end up with a lot of white leaves and not much on the apple. It completely runs off my cherries. Am I not using enough in the bottle? I tried probably 6-8 tablespoons in a 20 oz hand sprayer.
Er, maybe 20-30. Roughly dime to quarter sized, but in dense groupings of 3-5. This is literally my 1st year getting fruit on a … 3 year semi-dwarf, and a couple of 2 year dwarves. I’m thinking I should thin, but I’d like to get at least some of those apples.
Next year I hope to see some stone fruit, and that’s why I’m trying to get a handle on proper usage now. I didn’t think I’d see PC at all since I live in a subdivision, but I guess there is a wild plum or peach tree somewhere around.
Add a dash of dish soap, that will help break the surface film. Your sprayer probably is not producing a fine enough mist, but with a touch of soap you can probably get good coverage anyway.
For my tree trunks and blackberry canes I mix surround/dawn/neem oil. I add two tablespoons of neem per gallon. I don’t spray this mix on the fruit as it tends to be hard to wash off. It appears to help with borers and cane borers.
Last year I had apples on 4 different dwarf apples for the first time, plus a seckel pear that I actually got to taste. I ate about 5 of the 30 or so I kept after thinning, mostly because of squirrels or some other noxious beasts. It was only after I bagged them with the ziplock technique that they stopped disappearing.
I actually also had a pair of Harrow Sweets that set a whole bunch of fruit, but before I knew it, every single one had a codling moth worm in it so I pulled them all and tossed them out. Ugh. And my peaches all had PC strikes. Maybe I could have kept some of each of those with bagging.
At only 20-30 fruitlets just bag with ziplock sandwich bags. Check my annual report post for result photos.
I bag 100-150 per year now. Does not take that long and is kind of meditative after a long day at work to be outside playing with my trees. Does not work for plums in my area though, they just rot.
I use Surround on olive trees against olive fruit fly (OFF). I did it last year for the first time and was very happy with the results, one spray practically eliminated the OFF damage. I also had no problem removing the Surround film from olives after harvest by simply washing them in a bucket of water. I used a 4-gal backpack sprayer. Specifically for Surround, I regretted not having a sprayer with an agitator, it would be helpful to prevent fast precipitation of Surround particles.
I’ll try soap next time. The difference in apparent coverage between wet and dry is much bigger than I expected, though. Does anybody have a picture of what good coverage is supposed to look like?
Oddly, only my apples and cherries have PC strikes, not the peaches.
You can see its a bit spotty, something is a lot better than nothing!! The more pressure there seems to be on a tree or type the more I cover it. Also this varies by time of year. Today I did a refresh coat. Spring Satin is a massive PC magnet so it is 100% white and I refresh it every time I am spraying anything else. Euro plums are also magnets so they get more and better coats. Some Asian pears are also getting hit bad recently so good strong coats on them. Apricots this year have had almost no bites, so they have not been hit for a few weeks. Apples are just now getting tasty for the PC and a few trees had a bit of damage so those bits I hit very hard. Cherries get very little damage but need to be coated or will get PC since everything else they like is coated. So they get the most spotty coating of all.
Re: peaches, it can be misleading as the fuzz can hide the presence of bite marks. I had a couple years where I had an unpleasant surprise of lots of peach damage. Nectarines are much worse than peaches, for them you need heavy spray, and when I see bites on the nectarines I give the peaches a somewhat-sloppy coat. Peaches are easier to protect than plums or asian pears, but need more coverage than cherries.
Today I sprayed my apples; it was supposed to rain but it rained a lot more than the forecast said it was going to. So I get to do it all over in a few days
I’m switching to Weather Underground, it seems to have reasonable precipitation amount forecasts. A good weather app is needed for Surround spraying, if you just wait til the rain stops completely you could be getting eaten alive meanwhile. So you need to work around the precipitation amounts and spray after the big dumps of half an inch or more.
Heres a Surround nightmare … check out all the rain I have coming. On the plus side it will be cool so the curc will be moving much more slowly, but I’m sure I’ll get some damage.
I put a layer of Surround on my trees last night despite the treat of heavy rain tonight. Two of my apple trees had no coverage and pea sized fruit. Heavy rains over the weekend had washed the Surround off the plums and pears. Peaches seem to hold onto Surround the best, probably because of the fuzz. I mixed in Spinosad and Dawn dish soap on Scott’s recommendation. The soap really does help the Surround stick.
I am pleasantly surprised how well my Surround is sticking through all the rain, the apples are still looking reasonably well coated after 3/4". The plum fruits are all washed off though. The curc has not been biting them much in any case, there still is Surround on the limbs and trunk and that may be holding them back.
I was out last night looking, during a momentary hiatus of precipitation, and found Surround still sticking to most of the fruit. I could not identify one PC strike. So far so good. I’m planning on reapplying on Saturday night and I’ll take my chances with Sunday thunderstorms.
