I’m also interested in no-spray fruit, but its not going to happen in my area! The summer rots were so bad last year, I could not control them even with fungicides.
Most commercial no spray (organic) apples are grown in a very dry climate where annual rainfall is less than 15 inches/year. I get about 3X that amount of rain.
Monoculture like an apple orchard is an unstable ecological system and is prone to all kinds of problems.
I would guess that my zone 7 Piedmont North Carolina location with a micro-location that’s also very sub-optimal (lower lying than almost all the surrounding land with hardly any spot that’s more than 100’ from a red-cedar) is probably close to as bad in terms of pest and disease pressure as anywhere in the US, but I see some hope even here with no-spray (and no organic sprays, no mating disruption, etc.) apples.
I have a neighbor with two or three old apple trees that brings us bushels of apples every year, and he doesn’t do anything for his trees besides mow under them and pick up the fruit. He doesn’t even prune them or at least hasn’t in many years. Of course, he doesn’t bring us the apples that aren’t at all usable, and I know there are plenty of those, and I don’t know if a single one of the apples he’s brought has been free of a bad spot – it seems to be more rot than active, visible worms – such that the apples need to be used very promptly if we want to get any good out of them at all, but altogether there’s lots of usable apple. I know of other people in the area with similar levels of no-spray success as this neighbor.
My oldest trees where I live now have only been in the ground for 9 years, and I’ve done very little for them as far as watering, fertilizing, and suppressing weed competition, so they’re not as far along as 9 year old trees probably should be, but I’ve seen some hope with my own trees, too. The tree that I was originally most hopeful for based on things I read about disease resistance, Liberty, has been a complete failure, though. The tree has grown nicely and the foliage probably looks better than any of my other trees, but the fruit is always badly misshapen and rotting and wormy that I hardly ever can find even a little bit of good on any apple. At the opposite extreme, the apples from my Pristine tree have mostly been very nice, maybe occasionally a worm in the middle or some cosmetic issues, but almost all of the apples have been almost entirely usable. Maybe it helps that it’s really early. Most of my other apples have been about halfway between those extremes: Gold Rush, Arkansas Black, Enterprise, Yellow Transparent…meaning a few apples are completely ruined but most apples are at least mostly usable with some carving. Stayman and Golden Delicious have been a little better. CAR seems to hit the Golden Delicious foliage especially hard, and the tree doesn’t seem to have grown as well, perhaps because of the CAR, but the apples have been surprisingly free of problems, at least relative to most of my other trees. I selected nearly all my apples based on various indications of better no-spray suitability, so I imagine if I had just selected varieties based mostly on taste or familiarity that most of my apples would be nearly or completely ruined.
Picking varieties suited for your climate and region’s pest and disease pressure is key. While I’m new to fruit growing, I have been growing tomatoes my entire life, and there is a stark difference in terms of plant health and yield between persnickety heirloom varieties and those bred for disease resistance. Some plants and tree varieties have a tendency to scream “eat me” to the world. If you pick an “eat me” variety without disease and pest resistance you’re just not going to produce viable yields without some kind of spraying or serious pest and disease management system.
It’s also very hard for me to take general disease and pest advice from anyone growing fruit, vegetables or plants in an arid part of the country. Walking into my backyard at night during the late spring and summer means that you’re going to be pelted in the face by moths and an assortment of creepy crawlers. The praying mantises in my backyard may love it, but they can only eat so much, so fast (yes, I know they’re actually not a particularly effect “beneficial” insect). It also doesn’t help that the air in Virginia is humid soup for most of the summer.
I’m thinking that the best chance for it would be to build a greenhouse around the trees. 
At some point, I’d like to try to figure out a way to use bug zappers and bait to form a protective perimeter around the orchard. The trick would be to figure out what bait works best for each pest and how many zappers are needed per area. Once all that is worked out, the only other thing to do would be to pick fruit which doesn’t need fungicides, which isn’t too hard for apples if looks aren’t critical, but could be tough for others such as euro plums. The whole topic makes me appreciate jujubes.
I’m one of the very low spray, mostly organic growers who is contemplating stepping up my spraying a bit. Now that the trees are old enough, there is more to protect.
I don’t think there is such a thing as commercial “no spray” apples. From what I’ve read, organic apples get sprayed plenty, just by different chemicals. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy organic fruit- I often do. It may have fewer nasty chemicals, but it often tastes better due to additional care that is taken in the growing and harvesting (more $ to be made).
I found the following quote in an article I read several years ago about apples interesting:
“The majority of consumers think ‘organic’ means we don’t spray with anything,” Owings [a North Carolina Cooperative Extension agriculture agent for Henderson County, the biggest apple county in the North Carolina mountains] says, “But in fact, we actually spray twice as often, but we spray with USDA-approved materials…That’s one of the reasons it’s three to four times more expensive to grow organic apples than it is conventional apples. An acre of conventionally grown apples would cost $700 a season for pesticides and fungicides; an identical organic crop’s price tag for organic crop protectants is about $3,400.”
I expect those facts and numbers would be very different out West, btw.
“No Spray” was a bad choice of words on my part. I was actually speaking of organic apples. We all know that organic and “no spray” are two completely different things. Commercial organic apples are sprayed a lot! Much more often than conventional commercial apples. Owing’s estimate of 2 times as often should be close. He is the extension director for Henderson County where over 3/4 of all NC apples are grown.
I know of only one commercial organic apple orchard in NC. From what I understand his production cost per bushel is more than 2 times the production cost of other apple orchards in his area. He has grown organic apples for a long time, so he must get a price high enough to cover his increased production cost.
I’m not convinced that many “organic” chemicals from the ORMI certification list are less toxic to public health than conventional chemicals. Calling a poison “organic” does not make it safe. We use both organic and conventional chemicals in our small orchards. We do not use some conventional chemicals because I don’t like the safety profile. On the other hand, my organic, ORMI certified Lime Sulfur is the most dangerous chemical I use. It can cause sever burns, blindness and strip the paint from the tractor and sprayer if not handled properly!
Agreed. Some organic products like copper, antibiotics, pyrethrum (or lime sulfur) I have questions about their use either in the short term or the long term, about what they do to the soil and/or pollinators. There are only a few organic products I feel completely comfortable using. The BT products seem the best as far as environmental impact. I’ve never read anything that says they’re bad to anything else besides what they are targeting. Spinosad is pretty good too as long as you spray very early to allow it to dry before the pollinators come out. As far as fungicides go, I dunno if there is anything that’s close to zero impact. I’ve heard some people say they use Serenade, but it’s expensive and I haven’t heard it does a great job.
Do you know what varieties he grows? I do better with the early apples before the black/white and bitter rot hits.
Actually those numbers seem about right for commercial growers throughout California.
It depends on the dosage you need. Some organic growers can get the control they need from 1 or 2 foliar sprays of an NOP approved copper chelate fertilizer. One of these is copper lignosulfate. The latter is a by-product of pulp mills – it is wood oil leached out by sulfuric acid.
I think he said one tree is a red delicious, but I could be mistaken about that. I don’t think he even knows what the other one or two are. None of them is especially early, though. They all seem to come more or less in the middle of the local apple season.
Actually, my point is that the idea that a balanced ecosystem would especially favor human beings is a rather humancentric construct. but if by balanced you mean tilted to mankind’s advantage, maybe there is a better word than balanced. Maybe just healthy or vital. What we don’t want is soil that has been so poisoned it is no longer a recognizable biology. .
There was an organic apple grower in my area for a while. The couple took over a large (by direct market standards) conventional apple orchard and converted to organic. They ended up selling after about 4 years, and now the orchard is no longer selling fruit.
I don’t know for sure why they sold, but I heard though the grapevine some of the customers were pretty disappointed. Honestly, I can’t imagine a non-pesticide commercial apple orchard being viable here.
I think there is definitely a challenge when numbers of fruit trees escalate to a commercial level. Pest pressures increase substantially. It becomes a monoculture at a commercial level which seems to necessitate commercial pest controls.
Also I don’t think it takes that many trees to become what pests desire as a monoculture. I’ve not seen any research in this area, but I think would be a fascinating area of research. My guess is about 15 -20 fruit trees of the same class might be defined as a monoculture from a pest perspective. I’m sure it would depend on how spaced out the trees were of course. I doubt 20 trees spaced out on a quarter section would experience the same pest pressure as the same number spaced out on a 10,000 sq/ft lot.
I believe you are speaking from philosophy. I have managed scores of orchards in meadows and in suburban landscapes for a very long time, from suburban stretches with nothing wild and mostly lawn to preserves on top of mountains where not a single man-made structure is visible. There are more fruit pests that thrive in a wild meadow than what will thrive in a clean lawn. Monocots (grasses) have a different roster of pests than dicots (broad leafed plants) although there is some overlap. Voles are also much more problematic in a meadow.
Most species of fruit that we talk about growing on this forum did not evolve in the conditions we are attempting to grow them in- the trees do not necessarily require “sound fruit” to fulfill their biological imperative anyway- just good enough to encourage animals to move seeds around. If you want no spray in the humid regions you will often be better served growing native species such as our persimmons, paw paws and blueberries.
By the way, 40 years ago I believed as you do, but then I moved from S. CA to New York and I wanted to grow the same species of luscious fruit I grew there, not just for me but to make my living doing it for other people in orchards I install from my nursery. There is almost zero commercial organic stone-fruit production in the humid regions- that should tell you something. Go to Whole Foods next harvest season and check the boxes of beautiful plums, peaches and nectarines to see where the fruit has come from.
Aren’t both Surround and biological treatments (bt, granulosis virus, etc) organic from a statutory perspective? I would definitely consider both of them “organic” from a philosophical perspective.
This discussion may be getting confused by semantics. To me, its not the physical act of “spraying” that is problematic. The issue is what is being sprayed…
However, I agree with some points that have been made by other posters regarding commercial organic practices. Simply carpet bombing the orchard with a naturally occurring poison rather than a petrochemical poison, in order to comply with a statutory definition of “organic”, is not ideal.
Curiously, some other native species don’t seem to fit the bill so well, though. Serviceberries (A. arborea), for example, are native here, and they’re fairly common, but the fruit is ruined by disease every year. Maybe the particular disease (rust, I think) isn’t native, or maybe, like you said, the trees just don’t need to produce good fruit to reproduce. Non-native figs, for example, are much easier to grow for good fruit than native American chestnuts or native plum species or native mayhaws.
For humans at least. But the rot around the seeds can make for good germination in the native soil.[quote=“cousinfloyd, post:56, topic:8054”]
Non-native figs, for example, are much easier to grow for good fruit than native American chestnuts
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… in your location.
I am removing all my apple trees this year because I just can’t get a decent crop no matter how much I spray. I do have an unknown early apple that I will keep, it does fine and ripens before bitter rot develops. One PC spray after bloom and I have nice apples in June.
Yes I was confused. I am pretty sure that “no spray” means no spraying anything. I think there are several common levels of spraying:
The organic folks in NC grow around 100 acres of Apples and 100 acres of vegetables using organic materials. They have done it for a long time and get a lot of help from the extension folks.
So far, I have not produced good quality apples in reasonable quantities with conventional chemicals. I learned last year that the proper fungicide spray schedule is once every 5 days or so when we get a lot of rain. That’s a lot of spray!