Wasps are vicious this year.
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Oh no! I am sorry you are dealing with this, here I am asking you all sorts of growing questions. Get some rest and recover.
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Looking at all your animal damage, I think you should invest in a dog with some poodle blood in its pedigree or an electric fence. I visited a smaller gardener (suburban Swampscott) who has great success with his electric fences. The havaharts are awesome, but I am not sure what I would do if I caught a skunk 
or a 
.
My guy patrols the daytime hours:
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Cute dog, Colleen.
Having a dog is a big responsibility. Our lifestyle is not suitable to have a pet.
Re. An electric fence, my trees are all over the yard, front, side (both) and back. Imagine setting up an electric fence around my whole property 
. I probably would get electric shock more often than those animals.
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We have had a lot of rain recently. Rain in mid August when many of my fruit are ripening is very inopportune. Bloating in peaches and nectarines. More seriously, Splitting/cracking of plums is a big issue. After they split, they rotted. The worst variety is French Improved.
Last year, all French Improved cracked and split wide open, many pounds of them.
This pic was taken yesterday.
.
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I have never had a season where brown rot was so difficult to control. I suppose it is the result of a perfect storm of conditions. Even trees sprayed 2 weeks before harvest in my own orchard tend to be crippled with rot, spreading into the small wood even before I see the rotten fruit.
I have realized in recent years that a site sheltered from wind encourages brown rot and fruit splitting because of heavy dew that tends to stick to the trees fairly late in the day. I also believe that when an orchard is surrounded by forest trees, even if they are far enough away to allow good light exposure, that fungal pressure is increased not just by slowing breezes but perhaps also from moisture released by the big trees through transpiration. Now this season is suggesting that brown rot accelerated by especially warm nights in succession. We’ve been wet here for 5 straight growing season but the brown rot is much worse this year than preceding ones. The only difference I’m sure of is the warmer nights.
The other factor that plays into it are the split pits that are created by wet springs.
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@alan My situation is very similar to you, if not worse. However, my orchard is not sheltered, and I still got the worst BR pressure that I have ever seen. Full size trees loosing 95% of their crop and small branches dying.
I think the forests also contribute natives (cherries for example) that act as hosts for the disease, allowing it to flourish!
What have you been spraying for rot this year?
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Ahmad,
I assume you asked @alan about his fungicide spray.
My is a combo of Indar and Luna Sensation at full rate each. It worked well for early ripening stone fruit like Snack Time and Saturn, both of which were either not bagged or bagged wit see-through organza bags, which fungicide could go through.
My peaches and necatrines that are bagged suffered a fair amount of rot as it has rained fairly after after my last spray in early July. Also, due of poor prune and branches reaching the ground, it increases a poor ventilation issue. I think I won’t bag with paper bags next year.
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Yes Tippy, I was addressing Alan 
, as me and you conversed about BR not long ago and you informed me with your spray regimen.
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I have Indar, Captan and Pristine. My first sprays were with Indar and Captan, but when I started spraying my apple trees with calcium for fruit rots I took Captan out of the mix and added Pristine, doubling down in case the my brown rot had developed resistance to Indar. You cannot use Captan with foliar calcium.
I haven’t sprayed the trees I’m harvesting fruit from right now for about 3 weeks and they were only sprayed twice during summer, but on a normal year a single app a month before ripening has been sufficient.
The tree that is rotting fruit even before it is fully ripe is a Coral Star peach that is dying, so I don’t know if that’s contributing to the problem, but coincidentally (or not, could be weather related) I have a similarly declining Ernie’s Choice whose fruit ripened without the same problems- I could pick the fruit at prime time.
I harvested a lot of my Tang’Os, but only because it is such a big and healthy tree that it was almost doing me a favor by having more than half the fruit rot… However, I could have kept fruit on the tree for a couple more days if the rot wasn’t so prevalent and had somewhat sweeter fruit. That tree puts out much larger fruit than anything I’ve seen in stores and that probably encourages rot as well, but TangO’s is a tough peach to grow. Worth in on good years though.
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What’s the calcium product that you spray with? And what is its spray schedule? I may give it a try next year.
I ordered it from the company formally known as crop production systems that is a wide-spread conglomerate agricultural chemical supplier, from pesticides to fertilizer. The product they sent me was a 2.5 gallon jug labeled Enviro Calcium. The label says “derived from calcium chloride” and university recs just call for calcium chloride to “calcify” apples. I’m wondering what liquifying it and otherwise processing it does towards altering its properties (beyond price, especially the shipping). Calcium chloride is widely available as an ice melter that doesn’t burn plants. You can search for an answer if it is worth purchasing the product I’m using. I use a pint in every 25 gallons of spray and spray trees till dripping, as usual when I spray most anything.
I do it every 2 weeks starting by the 2nd week of July and through August because that is when I spray for the few customers that want pristine fruit anyway (as far as summer sprays). Commercial growers keep such sprays going through June and Cornell says if you don’t stop summer fungus from starting in June it’s too late. My experience contradicts this.
Since using the calcium the last 3 years including this one, my bitter rot issue has gone from major to minor in susceptible varieties. These especially include Honey Crisp and Jonagold (Jonaprince, my preferred variety).
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I was thinking about spraying calcium since I have Honey Crisp setting a lot if fruit.
Is this too late?
By the way, this is my first year fruiting Ernie’s Choice. When did/do you pick yours?
Earnie’s here comes 10-14 days after Red Haven. It’s been done for a while- over a week. It is not a tree that ripens its crops gradually, they are all ready within a week of each other.
I’m no expert on calcium, but if the trees don’t have rot starting yet, I expect it would be helpful and maybe even if they are. I’ve only been using it for 3 seasons and I probably won’t live long enough to sort it our by way of my own experience.
Research seems pretty lacking, anyway. I should probably do a search to see if anyone has attempted a research project to find out what a least spray calcium program would be, but university guidelines tend to be full of logical leaps and presumptions, or at the very least, they are geared to producing perfect fruit in a mono-cultures of many acres.
If even half of my Honeycrisp apples ripen without rotting, that’s plenty for me. I am doing a lot better than that now that I’m doing limited Calcium apps.
This sheet suggests a dramatic difference between continuous apps and just a couple, but I don’t at all believe it because they do not show the research. I don’t know when the two apps were made, for one thing and if they tried different timing for fewer apps. I hate it when they don’t include a research paper that they must be referring to. University ag professors don’t tend to be at the top of the academic pyramid, if you know what I mean. Why should I trust their interpretations?
Here is the most complete guide I can find. It mentions that boron is as important as calcium which isn’t an element I have concerned myself about lately. I’m wondering it you could have a deficiency that doesn’t show in the leaves but affects the fruit.
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we had similar condtions last summer and brown rot won in the end. still got 70% of the crop. this summer is very dry. not drought but borderline. good conditions to ripen fruit in.
Yes, I’ve been praying for well-timed drought for several years running and the goddess of green is not listening. I really miss high brix fruit. The brown rot issue we are having this year is about more than rain, I don’t think it’s been wetter here this season than the previous 3 (or is it 4?). It may be the heat and humidity that has accompanied it. Our dews are so heavy it’s almost like rain every night.
After the rain we are having today, a long spell of sunny weather is predicted. Maybe she is listening. Cooler nights with drier Canadian air is just what the remaining crops need. My Valor plums are ripening almost 2 weeks ahead of schedule and that stretch of weather may put them over the top.
predicting 63 for a high tues with 1.5in. of much needed rain. wont get back into the 70’s till’ sat. last summer was muggy as hell when it wasnt raining. mid to upper 80’s with a few low 90’s. no wind. the whole summer felt like being in a sauna. 70 to 80% humidity. my brothers in CT and he said he had similar conditions there. fungus and mold just loves that.
@alan
We had rain on Sat night to Sun. More rain during Sun yesterday. More rain last night to this morning. Some counties in CT had flash flood.
All I have to deal with is cracked fruit so my issue is trivial compared to those suffered from flood.
Here more of my plums that are ripening.
Mirabelle Parfume de Septembre.
My Fake Valor.
The more I look at it, the more I think it’s Mt Royal
@BobVance has mentioned the similarity of this plum to Mt. Royal.
They are both round and purple and about the same size, but I am almost certain it isn’t Mt Royal. Mt. Royal sets much more fruit, for one thing. I have a lot of experience with both varieties. Does Bob?