I see no need to delete your account here. Everyone listens to everyone else here, everyone learns. We have members from all over the world
1 Like
Yeah sorry if you were offended. I know the feeling when people try to tell me how to grow fruit here. I have been growing plants for over 40 years. I grow most organically, but stone fruit and sometimes grapes need assistance to grow here. I do try to grow as much spray free fruit as possible. I was able to get away this year without spraying my grapes. Only because if I have a problem they respond well to treatment. Usually preventatives are not needed. I avoid most veggies that need spray or grow them every other year. My tomatoes are always infected with fungi septoria spot mostly and both blights. I just plant a lot of them and donāt spray. So productivity is super low. But enough for my family.
With so many new pests coming in its terrible. Ever have 600 beetles in your yard eating your fruiting plants? Happens every year here. I suspect the west coast will eventually suffer too. Citrus will be gone soon in California like Florida. Iām hoping in the future we can use genetic and biological tools to defeat these pests.
1 Like
What do you suggest be used?
What problem are you having?
I just want to give my 2 cents here about growing without chemicals. It is simply very hard, even in socal. I am doing it because of health problems. When my son was little, he got sick when eating anything with chemicals. We used to let him test all the organic produces, if he started coughing we wouldnāt buy it again. When my daughter was six years old she had a bad case of stye around her eyes. One look at them and her pediatrician sent her to children hospital in LA. They gave her different antibiotics for couple weeks and asked my permission to do biopsy because they suspected cancer as a cause. One of the doctors in the back of the room always shook his head to say no to me when the main doctor suggested it. I refused because I was afraid it would disfigure her eyes. Two of my brothers are doctors, and they said it would be very hard to cure it. The doctor at children hospital finally got mad at me so I asked for another week. In that week I fed her nothing but toast and water. She actually gained weight, and when they look at her at the end of the week they said no more treatment was needed. I fed her home cook food for more than half a year later because she would be so scared and screaming āmy eyesā when she ate something that bothered her. You can see why I was, and still am, very careful with food. I tried planting veggie but the bugs ate them all. Snow peas and tomato were fine in the netted enclosure but anything sticking out ended up with hornworms which looked horrifying. I didnāt want to kill anything so I would cut the branches and throw them down the hillside. Water gun is a good way to blast off aphids but it is very time consuming. We have chicken wire on top of the iron fence in the back yard to discourage squirrels. When we didnāt have it, one squirrel cleaned up a pear tree in one day. Now if one gets in it can only have one or two fruits before getting out. There is no way I can spray anything so I snip off anything that looks diseased. Last year the tree get too tall for me to bag the fruits so I found out covering the whole tree with tulle when the fruit were getting big actually deterred the birds, grasshoppers, and gave me nearly perfect stone fruits. It is lucky that I know how to use sewing machine to connect and make big covering pieces. The top of the backyard would be covered with mylar pinwheels in fruiting season. I wouldnāt do anything weird in the front yard out of respect for the neighbors so the fruit have to be harvested when still unripe, or leave them for the birds and squirrels at my husbandās request. It costs a lot of money and endless time to do these things and I am lucky to have the means to do it. Is it worth it? For me, yes, because it costs more money when someone in the family gets sick. One of my brothers, who is a doctor teaching at a medical school, doesnāt think it makes much difference because even when we feed something supposed to be organic to the plants we really donāt know how our body reacts to it. I respect his opinions because it is true in many ways, but I want to try my best to keep my family from getting sick.
1 Like
Never sprayed orchard before, have apples, peaches, pears, sweet & sour cherries, plums, grapes. Had some fire blight on apples & pears. Fruit usually has defects? Want to start spraying regimen. Live in zone 6 (WV). Know I need to spray in fall, then in late winter/ early spring when dormant before buds swell, then again. What I need to know what do I need to buy? Recommend brands and when to use what? You said you wouldnāt recommend Bonide? What do you recommend. Thanks. Connie
Never sprayed orchard before, have apples, peaches, pears, sweet & sour cherries, plums, grapes. Had some fire blight on apples & pears. Fruit usually has defects? Want to start spraying regimen. Live in zone 6 (WV). Know I need to spray in fall, then in late winter/ early spring when dormant before buds swell, then again. What I need to know what do I need to buy? Recommend brands and when to use what? You said you wouldnāt recommend Bonide? What do you recommend. Thanks. Connie
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 22, 2019, at 5:37 PM, Andrew Fignar via Growing Fruit <noreply@growingfruit.org>
Nothing wrong with Bonide as a brand, but when you use a mixed product, you end up with products you may not need.
Fireblight is best controlled with pruning and streptomycin while the trees are in bloom.
Peaches need a dormant spray of copper. Stone fruit and grapes need prevention of rots closer to harvest
Insect pests need to be sprayed when the fruit is developing, depending on the pests you have.
1 Like
I think I meant Bonideās one product called āFruit Tree Sprayā. Their other products are very good. Actually even this one is fine,if used before fruit is mature. I donāt grow apples or deal with fire blight so I canāt help there.
Does any of you fruit rot and fall off? Worms in the fruit? Both?
If you have both a simple program would be to us Bonide Fruit tree and Plant guard every 14 days starting after petal fall. For dormant sprays use Kocide copper and refer to this sites Spray Amounts guide,
If you still have insect pressure you can add another spray 7 days after you use plant guard, use Malathion or Sevin, Sevin is easier to work with. Follow label instructions and how many times you are allowed to spray in a season. That should help you. My sprays include a 2nd fungicide and are rather complex. I keep a log of all sprays.
Itās also important to use a sticker and Nu Film is excellent. You should be using acidified water too. Add a tablespoon of vinegar. First put water in, then vinegar, then whatever pesticides, then the sticker. Always in that order. Keep a log of sprays. Here is a sample of my log.
2018 03 17 Sprayed Kocide copper 2tbsp/gallon with Nu Film 17 sticker.
2018 04 22 Plant Guard (4tbs) can be used every 14 days 4 sprays left (Nu Film is used in all applications)
2018 05 18 Infuse (2tbs) 3 sprays left, and Fruit Tree Spray (2.5 tbs) 21 days 2 sprays left
2018 05 24 first PC strikes (plum curculio beetle)
2018 05 24 Ortho Flower, fruit, and vegetable (3 tbs) extra for trees because of bad PC. need to find something else.
2 Likes
You have fruit trees that will need spraying to protect against diseases and insects. Like @ltilton mentioned, some spray is done at a dirnant stage, some at an active frowing stage.
On the upper right hand corner of the page, you will see a symbol of a looking glass. That is the search function. Put in key words like āspray for peachesā , āspray for plumsā, etc. Many threads on these topics will show up for you to peruse. People ask these questions all the times.
It may be overwhelmed at first. After a while you will get a hang of it.
I think @speedster1 also lives in WV. His advice would be most applicable to your climate.
1 Like
Also, if you look in the Reference section and the Guides section, there is some good information in there about what to spray, when to spray it, and where to get it.
Here is a post from the reference section on where you may be able to get supplies (including sprays).
Here is Scottās low impact spray schedule.
Here is Alanās low impact spray schedule.
As Tippy mentioned, there are lots of other spray schedules people use, which can be found using the search function. Also as Tippy alluded your best bet for knowing what pests are most problematic in your locale, and how to deal with them are other members in your area.
@speedster1
@thecityman is in TN which is probably a similar enough climate to be helpful to you.
@blueberrythrill is in NC
@subdood_ky_z6b is in KY
@Hillbillyhort is in WV
@SpudDaddy is in VA
@BlueBerry is in KY
Iām sure there are others close by which I canāt think of right now and left out.
Continue to watch this thread. I imagine some of the people pinged will post info about the pests they deal with and their spray schedules.
3 Likes
Thanks to everyone for advice. I have over 30 fruit trees ranging from 40 yrs to 1, 13 of which are 3 yr old espaliers I started. Never really sprayed before. So Iām a newbie to spraying, pruning etc. One thing Iām reading is donāt combine copper & sulfur in same tank to minimize risk of damage to tree bark. Does this mean I canāt use the same tankā¦ that I need one for copper and one for sulfur or just donāt mix them together in an application? Thanks
If spray when trees are dornant, it should be fine.
This. Clean tank well between sprays and do it right after finished. I use copper in the spring, and sulfur in the fall. Sulfur is nice as it is low impact. Our advice is a general guide. Only you can determine what works for you. The pH is important and should not be skipped. Often not mentioned. Some sprays donāt like acid, but none I mentioned need to be alkaline. Why is it important? We the half-life of the pesticide is greatly increased. Such as malathion in basic alkaline water is effective for about an hour. In a acidic solution of 5.0 it is effective for 30 hours. This could be the difference between failure and success.
I live in Northern WV but Iām far from an expert. I grow many of the same fruit as you. My biggest spray concern is for PC. When I started my orchard I mainly used mainstream pesticides and fungicides suck as Triazicide and Bonide sprays. I found Triazicide was not effective at all. I bought Infuse for brown rot and Imidan for PC control this past summer so looking forward to seeing how effective it is this spring. My other big pest is Japanese beetles which Iāve controlled partially with carbyl but I hate to use it because it kills beneficial. Last fall I put down milky spore so I will see this summer if it helped.
My spray routine is pretty generic. Like many, I like to spray copper or sulfur in the fall when the trees go dormant. I also have sprayed copper and dormant oil around Valentineās day. Iāve not had any problems with PLC so I didnāt bother this year.
Only one small bit of fire blight a few years ago on an Asian pear. Nothing since.
1 Like
With Japanese beetles I added the new BT strain of bacteria and within a few years they went from 700 to 7 last year. I also spread crab shells around to attract chitin eating bacteria which parasitize grubs. We will see if this holds up in the forthcoming years.
You can wash out your tanks.
1 Like
I have not had any issues with Bonide products for the last 4 years I been using them. Just my 2 cents worth. I do wash out my tanks with a tank cleaning solution each time and only use certain products in different tanks just to be safe and no have a possible issue of cross contamination , even with the fact I clean my tanks out. One cross mess up and you have the possibility of burning your fruit. IMO. Better safe than ruining a whole years worth of fruit.
2 Likes
Is there a special tank cleaning solution or make your own? Or just soap (Dawn) & water?
I donāt recall having ever used Bonide Fruit Tree Spray.
I will give this testimonial: I killed an entire lawn so we could start over with seed and straw two years ago.
I intentionally tried 4 products side by side in the same yardā¦using dye in the sprayer to see where each was.
Glyphosate was the chemical of choice in this case.
I got better kill out of Bonide grass killer than Roundup, Spectracide, or the other one that Iāve forgotten already. (Part of what was being killed was nutsedge and crabgrass, along with lawn grasses and a few scattered weeds.)
2 Likes