It seems like the number one issue for stone fruits in my area is brown rot, from both this board, and talking to a couple of people in my area. What do you find to be the most effective fungicides?
I am neither pro nor anti-organic, I’m really just interested in something that works, that isn’t too expensive, and too widely harmful to other things if possible.
If you can get in on a group purchase of Indar…
otherwise a total guess but I’ve noticed Mark uses a lot of of Captan in his peach orchard. @Olpea
Dax
Great question…love to hear the responses. Randy/GA
Indar but it is expensive. Like Dax said, group purchase is the only way for backyard grower.
@thecityman has used myclobutanil successfully but he sprayed often, I believe.
How about Elevate?
As far as Indar, I know a couple years ago there was a thread about a group purchase, I don’t know if there’s one going on right now. My orchard is new and very small, so even a pint of it would probably last me quite a long time.
I used Captan for brown rot on peaches. I have been using it since 2013 and the brown rot is more or less under control.
I was in on the first group Indar purchase. It is excellent!
Indar works great, I am less clear on other things. Propiconazole seems pretty good but not as good as Indar. I am now alternating Indar and Elevate, I am getting little brown rot but since I never did Elevate alone its not clear how much it is helping. By the ratings it is supposed to be very good. It also has a different mode of action which is why I like to mix things up.
I just re-grafted Flavor King today, thats a sign of how things have changed regarding brown rot for me. When I was organic there was no way I could grow FK so I pulled it up.
I use it every year early in the season. Sometimes at the low rate. Sometimes mix at the low rate with Indar. I’ve also used propiconazole that Scott mentioned. I’ve also noticed it doesn’t work quite as well as Indar by itself. But it is dirt cheap. I think a gallon of the generic (Bumper) was something around $100. At 4 oz. per acre, the cost per acre is somewhere around 3 dollars.
I’ve also used Ziram. It more or less has the same efficacy as Captan, but has longer PHI’s and REI’s.
Here is an old thread where some of this was discussed.
I don’t think spraying it more often is the key- both Indar and myclo have similar staying power, it’s just that myclo doesn’t do a very good job of killing brown rot and has been rejected by Cornell as an effective tool for the purpose.
Last year was the first year I’ve had to deal with constant wet conditions during August. It was the first time I’ve seen unripe stone fruit rot on the trees. I used Bonide Infuse (propiconazole) for small quantity. It fixed my problem, but then I dodn’t have much brown rot pressure so far. My summers are unusually dry.
It is my turn this year of constant spring rain. Just went out to check my trees. Most J plums and cherries do not set well at all. Like one or two fruit!!!
My Black Gold cherry set reasonably well but still is about 30-40% less than previous years. I found that unripe, not fully develop cherries have already suffered brown rot this early (never this early).
My cherries usually ripen in early July. It will be a long battle with brown rot on stone fruit this year. It will rain tonight and tomorrow night. Indar won’t be sprayed until Monday.
I also had a lot of that on my White Gold cherry. But it isn’t necessarily an indication that rot will be bad, the cherries are ripening now and there is zero rot. I think these rotting fruits may be ones that were going to drop anyway.
This year I am rotating Indar, Elevate, and propiconazole for brown rot. Elevate was the cheapest effective thing I could find in a different resistance group with Indar … propiconazole and Indar are in the same group so they are not good things to alternate for anti-resistance. I am mainly using the propiconazole just to get rid of it in fact. So far I have almost no brown rot at all, this cherry issue was the only thing.
Oh, I am also using Tri-Tek oil (was called Saf-T-Side) in every tank which also provides brown rot protection by smothering spores. See for example
where it is the highest-rated organic control for brown rot. The combo of this oil plus a synthetic seems to be really whomping on the rot. In previous years I used some Saf-T-Side but not in every tank like I am doing this year.
Scott,
I am not as optimistic. When I touched the brown cherry f that cluster of 3 in the picture. The whole bunch came loose. Not much resistance on the stem. It’s like the whole stem started to rot anyway.
I don’t think that is rot, my guess is they are just dropping. More than half of my cherries dropped at that stage this year. I don’t know why but it doesn’t usually happen.
I blame excessive rain resulting in shaky pollination 
I have a question - Does fungicide kill benefits of Serenade ?
I have a brown rot issue (peaches) and we’ve had ALOT of rain here in in northeastern Mass. I have these three products and was going to alternate spraying every 7 or 8 days over the next several weeks:
If the Serenade is basically a fungus that doesn’t hurt the peaches but replaces the brown rot - will the fungicides kill it ? Thus negating its affect ?
Thanks for any & all input. Suggestions welcome. I’m new to this forum, but have had peach trees for 20 years with mostly a “low spray” philosophy. I try to use low impact methods if possible…but lost entire crop last year !
Thats a good question, I never found a complete answer to it but somewhere I read it would not be completely negated by other sprays.
In general Serenade is very weak, I don’t think its worth spraying on bad rot. I tried for 15 years and now I rarely use it. Tri-Tek oil is better if you want something low-impact. Or sulphur.
In general your sprays are not what I would call a good mix for brown rot, I would get one of the more effective things mentioned above and not captan. The Monterey fruit tree spray is not really doing anything for peaches, those insecticides are so weak that they don’t kill much more than aphids. If you want to do low-impact bug control use Surround, Bt, and/or spinosad instead.
Here is my low-impact schedule if you didn’t find it already:
The Infuse came today. Its raining (of course) so I’ll need to wait a few days.
It says that sprays should be at 21 day intervals…That seems long. Do you think I can do a few closer together ?
thanks for all the help. I sprayed Serenade plus the Monterrey Fruit Tree Spray Plus the other day. And will do the Infuse soon, then the Bonide Fruit Tree in a week or so.
