Now I know this topic has been covered over and over but I couldn’t find much about Cedar apple rust by spraying just the junipers themselves. I wish to keep my orchard as organic as possible but having eastern red cedar within a couple hundred feet of my trees poses an issue for some of the more susceptible varieties. Has anyone had any luck spraying their junipers with a traditional fungicide rather than the apples?
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I have this same question. I am in eastern Connecticut surrounded by cedars. Where are you?
im not sure many people have experiance with it.
Since the large junipers are hard to cover with spray.
And the small ones are easy to remove. So just remove em.
Also usualy if you can spray them you can also remove them.
You can see it when it shows up in the cedars. I have sprayed them plenty of times. In the end it is best to spray the fruit trees themselves. You may get it out of your cedars, but there are plenty more cedars that are not yours.
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I am in Wisconsin. And as much as I would love to cut them down they do provide about 90 percent of the shade on the north side of our house. There’s only a dozen or so of them so I don’t think spraying would be the worst? Then again I have minimal experience spraying for fungus…
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The problem is the cost. My cedars literally surround the orchard on two sides. The other two sides are lined with sixty foot tall black cherry trees. It would bankrupt my budget to spray these.
I don’t actually see any rust in the cedars which may mean there haven’t been apples in the vicinity for a long time as the life cycle of rust requires apples for a season then cedar.
Black knot is another story. I’ve already trimmed it off one of my newly planted plums.
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i have a row of white cedar as a privacy fence between me and the neighbor. i tried to graft rust resistant varieties on my trees but not all of them are. i imagine once they all fruit ill have to spray for it. the n.w corner of the property is covered with stands of chokecherry loaded with black knot. i went in there last year and cut out as much infested branches i could reach but some higher up i couldnt reach. already spraying for that.
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If just a few red cedar I’d cut them down. Chainsaw is organic solution, sort of.
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I think it’s an excellent thing to try and I’m surprised none of the landscape plant breeders have not developed car resistant cedars
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I’m trying to select only CAR resistant varieties, but is CAR mostly cosmetic or will it kill a tree?
Here is a picture of a neighbor’s ERC taken this morning.
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Most trees CAR is mainly cosmetic damage. Goldrush however is extremely sensitive to CAR to the point of complete defoliation in some cases. Immunox spray protects Goldrush here.
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My ultimate goal is to stay spray free. My trees are still too young to fruit, so we’ll see. My goal isn’t perfect, unblemished fruit, but not at the expense of all my trees dying. So far only my Hooples Antique Gold has had much CAR.
There’s a long list of CAR resistant apple varieties. It’s posted here somewhere I believe.
CAR is nothing comparing to fire blight.
Cummins has a disease resistant list of apples.
Buy Fruit Trees, Scions, and Rootstocks - Cummins Nursery - Fruit Trees, Scions, and Rootstocks for Apples, Pears, Cherries, Plums, Peaches, and Nectarines..
So are junipers also to blame? I’ve been told that all our cedar (which is a LOT) are really junipers but they would do the same thing. We are covered in junipers/cedars and I have never seen one of these galls. My apples are in their 4th year and I sprayed the first year faithfully. I thought about it the second year. It has crossed my mind a couple of times since then. I was out in our pasture looking at one of the large juniper/cedar trees that are within a stone’s throw (literally) of my apple trees and there are no galls to be seen. So… ???
Yes, true cedars are not to blame. Eastern Red Cedar (which you already know are actually junipers) gave CAR its name.
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So, at some time in the future I can expect the galls to occur?
I see you’re in Texas, and CAR exists down there. As a fungal disease, however, it’s not a huge problem in drier areas.
I would definitely ask other growers in your area if they’re seeing it though.
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We are very humid in this area of Texas and I don’t know anyone else growing apples nearby. I had a couple of trees last year with 1-2 apples but all my trees have small fruits this year. In all my years I’ve never seen the orange devil on a cedar/juniper. Will just have to watch out for it. And there are too many trees to watch…
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At my previous location my Goldrush and a Crab would load up with CAR every year unless I spayed them with immonox. I’m still seeing a little on these but considerably less without any sprays. There are less cedars near me and I removed the two on my property. Location appears to make a difference. Next year I will spray these two trees.