Captan during bloom, peaches

[ltilton]

It’s recommended to spray apples at bloom against scab

[Ahmad]

I don’t know much about pome fruit care, as I don’t have any pome trees! We have a few nearby orchards that do a very good job with their apples and pears, so I decided to use my limited space for stone fruits, which are kind of scarce here (at least the top quality ones).

[alan]

@ltilton

It’s recommended to spray apples at bloom against scab

And yet I get control of it without dong that, even with the most susceptible varieties on the wettest years with eastern shade.

The main thing is to protect the apples form the scab and even when it gets going a little on leaves early it seems to dry out with the petal fall spray in my experience. Myclo has some kick-back. Probably wouldn’t work with Captan alone.

[RichardRoundTree]

To me integrated pest management is trying to make the issue better over a period of years

I think preventative applications with beneficial bacterias and naturalish pesticide sprays that do not kill your predator insects (or kill significantly less) makes more sense and that over time the issue would get better. I think the preventative eradicating of natural predators just makes sure you get worse pests over the years.

Pesticide and fungicide application is difficult and there is a lot of ins and outs to it, It makes sense to hire someone thats local and really understands what they are doing like alan or olpea who can have a chemical arsenal or really be able to afford enough pesticides that you are alternating mode of actions (stopping pests building up resistance) . Its sad because i would like everyone to be able to afford the right tools to take care of there orchards but many pesticide manufacturers will not make smaller quantities because they are not sure the person buying it will have the knowledge to use it correctly. Marrone does this and it makes me sad because there products are much less harmful but will still be bad if used improperly.

It makes sense to save the chemical pesticides which build up immunities for actual pest outbreaks so you can kill them when you need to. Same with fungicides, while many on her do not feel that fungal diseases are developing immunities to fungicides i do believe it is happening, Beneficial bacteria sprays sprayed preventatively pre bloom or during bloom could stop this and would not kill pollinators. If preventative fungicide sprays that kill bees are needed, it seems like for your trees pollination sake its a worthwhile trade to wait for them to finish blooming.

[Olpea]

@SpudDaddy

Hi Olpea,

When do you spray Chlorothalonil? Looking at the Echo label

“Make one application at budbreak or popcorn (pink, red or early white bud). If weather conditions favor disease, make a second
application 10 days later (full bloom to petal
fall). Apply at shuck split to prevent infections on young fruit. If additional disease
control is needed after shuck split and
before harvest, use another registered fungicide.”

Hi Spud,

I don’t spray any chlorothalonil during the growing season. I just spray it for leaf curl during the dormant season. Most of the time I like to get it on in late fall when the majority of the leaves have dropped. Last year I was too busy to get it done then, and the injector pump was out on my tractor. So I didn’t get the leaf curl spray on till Feb., I think. Anyway a winter spray of chlorothalonil is all that’s needed here for leaf curl. Then no sprays till shuck split.

And as Alan mentioned, I’ve never seen any blossom blight with this program. I will admit by the time shuck split occurs, there are pest insects attacking the fruit. Namely PC and stink bug. But at that point they haven’t had time to do much damage. One good insecticide spray leaves them dead on the orchard floor. I still have to follow up with sprays, but you are ahead of the pests at that point.

[SpudDaddy]

Thanks for sharing Olpea!

[Stan]

@SpudDaddy

I regret spraying my peaches during bloom, pre-shuck. There is considerably less bee activity (like none) on my trees now.

According to Wikipedia, “Chlorothalonil was found to be an important factor in the decline of the honey bee population, by making the bees more vulnerable to the gut parasite Nosema ceranae.”