Bonide Fruit Tree Spray Burns on Peach Trees

I have come to not like them either, my biggest complaint about Bonide. So I do switch products as you mention an insecticide is not always needed. I have a window where it isn’t. That window has now closed with the arrival of Japanese beetles and SWD so back to the dual products.

For some reason I’ve never had captan burn on peaches under any conditions or rates (as I mentioned in the links AJ posted) but I know it can occur. I still use captan every season.

The pics posted by Spokane Peach seem to match pics on the internet of captan burn.

One thing I’ll mention is that for some reason different formulations have different phytotoxicity potential. At least that was my experience in one case.

Namely, I once bought some chlorothalonil off the shelf as a lawn store and used it to spray some tomatoes. Every single time I used it, it would burn the tomato foliage. I kept backing off the rate more and more till I was using only 1/4 of the labeled rate and still had problems. This was a long time ago and I was pretty frustrated it wasn’t working.

Then I used a different formulation of chlorothalonil and didn’t have any problems. I use it on tomatoes at the max rate now and don’t see any foliage burn. I suspect it was one of the “inert” ingredients of the first formulation which was phytotoxic, but that’s just a guess.

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I want to make the observation that Bonide’s Fruit Tree and Plant Guard contains lambda-cyhalothrin which is just a mix of the active ingredient in Spectracide Triazicide (gamma-cyhalothrin) and an less active isomer. It also has Pristine fungicide in it (boscalid+pyraclostrobin).

I gave a small amount I had left to my dad this spring as I didn’t have use for much spray this year, and he told me that it didn’t seem to work on the Japanese beetles. I’m guessing that lambda-cyhalothrin suffers from the same problem its isomer does - rapid breakdown at the dilute rate under hot temperatures. The same product worked very well for me last year at keeping JB’s at bay for about 2 weeks.

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I’ll agree with @Olpea. I think it’s mainly the spreader component of these premixes .Foliage burn have happened to me using Orthro Flower, Fruit and Vegetable insect killer.

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Captan burn is well known by commercial apple growers in the Hudson Valley near me. It burns tender young foliage, especially when lots of rain and lack of strong sun keeps foliage tender. What my adviser from Crop Production Services says about it is “they sell fruit not leaves”. Captan is still a vital component of most commercial growers scab control. Leaf burn may look ugly but doesn’t have much practical negative affect on trees over the course of a season. Once scab gets on the fruit you are screwed. Myclobutanil is no longer a silver bullet in the Hud Valley, but scab has yet to break Captan’s more complex code.

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How would the fruit be if you didn’t use these products? Each member/poster here should have their geographical location listed. For home growing I’m surprised these products are used. There could be a problem with your given environment which causes pest problems to occur which affects the integrity of the fruit, the fruit quality, and which could possibly be ‘corrected’, but without the use of poisons.

Scott,

Where is your geographical location?

South OB, Pt. Loma, San Diego,… location should be a given reference next to each of our names. Tell us where you’re located,… and again, it should be already listed per website set up right next to our name on each message we write.

Pests are dependent on conditions, and for the homeowner especially, efforts for ‘holistic’ control/balance should be made, and making sense of the conditions and how the conditions may promote pest problems.

You can list your location in your profile. If you click on the member’s name or image to the left of their name a pop-up with their profile info comes up.

Yes, as Levers points out, you can edit your profile with location, then when anyone wants to see your location, they can click on your avatar to see where you are from.

To edit your profile and include location, click on your avatar, then click on preferences, then click on profile, then click on the line which says location. The location dialog box will open and you can type in your location.

We are somewhat limited to features available with this software package. It’s a great software program, but some features are limited, and we are bound by the formatting of the software. Some people may choose not to disclose their location, which of course they don’t have to.

When I lived in S. CA I didn’t need to spray anything to get crop and I was a die-hard organic grower. Until you’ve tried to grow fruit in the humid region you can’t know anything about what we face when we decide to graduate from growing vegetables to growing tree fruit. Apples can be grown organically, but you aren’t going to get storeable fruit without a lot of spray no matter how you do it. We have nothing organic that controls brown rot on stone fruit.

These are not native fruit we are talking about. Integrity gots nothing to do with it.

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“Until you’ve tried to grow fruit in the humid region you can’t know anything about what we face when we decide to graduate from growing vegetables to growing tree fruit”. Kudos, very well said indeed…

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Of course, growing what typically succeeds without what might be called ‘noxious’ control’ [i.e. 'poison(s)], of pests and which control harms other non-target organisms, along with reasonable optimization of the micro-situation growing conditions is a priority over usage of ‘noxious’ control practices, as we all know, I figure.

I realize there’s the matter of ideals, and, what works for a given situation, and a given person as well, per ones criteria. So, we each have our inspirations, principles, and practicality matters… to work out to our satisfaction.

Do I use poisons to control insects? Rarely, and so far that’s only been soap sprays and Ant bait, both to control ants. But, I no longer use soap sprays, due to non-target harm, such as to ‘beneficial insects’, which feed on aphids, mealybug,… and such. I just either hose down with a water gun, or nothing, and use Ant bait such as Terro ( I forget the specifics of it).

Scott,
Like @alan implied, difiirent climates have different challenges and different levels of challenges. You have not been growing fruit in the humid east, you would not know why we need to use the chemicals we do. If possible, the majority of us would want to use no toxic chemicals like you do, too.

The founder of this forum @scottfsmith has practiced growing fruit organically for years. I’m pretty sure even Scott Smith would say it is not a walk in a park.

Perhaps you grow all the fruit you consume, but if you are ever at Whole Foods or another purveyor of organic fruit check the states they come from. You will discover the industry only exists where it is a desert during the growing season, as it is in San Diego. I was as naive and idealistic about organic growing as you when I arrived in the East Coast over 30 years ago. Made most of my living in CA as a grower too before I came here. Why theorize about something you’ve not experience doing. It isn’t fair to those of us who have to deal with entirely different conditions than you.

Used to be an organic grower here and worked very hard at it. He still doesn’t poison bugs, only fungus with synthetic chemicals. But he gets a lot less bang for the buck than if he did use a moderate amount of synthetic insecticide.

Honestly my biggest crop drain these days is the animals … squirrels, birds and deer. I am harvesting plums now from my front orchard and I have a full load of pretty much insect-free fruit.

That said, it took me a long time to figure it out and I had worse luck on diseases and I now use synthetics.

@GrowFruit given the success you are having with the treatments you list, you are giving yourself away as coming from the dry southwest (or similar region).

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I speak from my experiences, living my entire life in San Diego. And, wherever one may be, I consider it a priority to grow fruits that don’t have pest problems which require poisons. Call it naive and idealistic,… I call it ‘what works’ from my long term experiences where I live, and I would apply that criteria anywhere, as I understand from other growers from their sharings, such as in east Asia and Japan,… and even long ago in the eastern United States (being that I don’t keep with current East half/Coast growing, - so far I haven’t had an need to). Grow the varieties that don’t have the problems with pests which require poisons to control,…. if you can. Consider this a reminder, even if you already ‘know it all’.

I’ll probably delete my account, because there’s no use for me to be discussing this with East half/East coasters.

By bang for the buck, I mean crop in ratio to effort. I oversee organic production here at several sites, and it seems to require more than twice the time. 4 insect control sprays instead of two, that take double the time because Surround has to be applied almost like paint. The volume of harvest also suffers because of greater pest damage.

If you are here to preach to East Coast growers on how they should grow their fruit, maybe you should. If you come here to share your positive experiences and learn from other growers, including West Coast growers who don’t use any synthetic interventions you should stay. No one is faulting you for the methods you use to get the results you want, but ideological assertions always get pushback, no matter what the subject, unless it’s a forum of people with the same ideology (so beliefs are reinforced instead of challenged). This forum does attract a lot of humid region growers- probably because we need more help to succeed.

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Yes we would have to stop growing all stone fruit without chemicals. I myself feel the chemicals are not dangerous if used properly. The benefits way out way the risk. All fruit here is grown with chemicals. Sure we get organic fruit from the west but to tell the truth most is terrible and inedible. At least with my own fruit I know exactly what I’m getting. The commercial fruit sold here had tons more toxic chemicals on it than anything I grow. The organic fruit from the west lasts a few hours and the local stuff is covered in chemicals. I’m not giving up eating all fruit so I grow my own with as few chemicals as possible. We are extremely aware of what we are doing. Which is providing healthy fruit that tastes great with a minimum of chemicals. I refuse to give up eating fruit. Sure I could eat the organic fruit that tastes like crap by the time it gets here. Underripe and rotting. Yum!

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I hope you don’t. This is a great forum with a wide diversity of fruit growers. You will find people here which completely match your philosophical growing perspective. You will also find people you believe on the other end of the spectrum.

Both Mamuang and Scott and other staff are very “organic friendly” and try to use a minimum approach to poisons. Alan uses a low spray approach in his tree business, so don’t be put off by the push back they may give. You must admit you came on a little strong about your philosophy out of the gate, which invites some push back.

Almost all the regular posters here have a long history of fruit growing, they aren’t the typical uninformed backyard neophyte grower. They are just as experienced as some of the most experienced members of the CRFG members, even more so when it comes to dealing with pests.

As for my part, I agree there are fruits which can be grown free of pesticides in any area. But in my area, there are very few choices of tier 1 fruit (fruit which has dessert quality by itself) which can be grown without pesticides. That’s the whole issue for a lot of people. They want to grow tier 1 fruit, but don’t have the climate to do it without synthetics. I hope you can understand the different perspective. I think you’ll find a lot of people can understand yours.

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