Thanks for the reply.
I think a few of those they carry at Stark Bros. Any thoughts on mixing Asian pears with our European pears. Will they pollinate each other/have more or less disease and pest resistance?
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Sure i like asian pears as well as european i slipped drippin honey in the mix. You might also like korean giant. They call it starking hardy giant Pear Trees For Sale - Buy Pear Trees from Stark Bro's
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Finally tasted my first pears. Drippin Honey are excellent! Rich, crisp and honeyed flavor. No browning. I had bagged these with Clemson bags and oddly the rats, possum and raccoon left them alone. They weren’t fragrant which I suppose makes them less attractive. Meanwhile, possum and rats managed to eat nearly all my unripe persimmon and Autumn Beauty jujube.
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Drippin Honey is one of the best. Been letting people know about it since i bought my first trees at $5 each from Gurneys. Noone had heard of them at that point so i was likely the only one who gave them a try the first year they came out.
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Ugh, just got pulverized by ping pong sized hail for 20 minutes. Defoliated my youngest trees, and broke the buds off too. They are already stressed because of grasshopper pressure, and I’m afraid this may be the end for dozens of trees.
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This climate murders many fruit trees here in Kansas. Im sorry to here about the hail. Do you have pictures of your grass hopper or hail damage? The grasshoppers are pretty bad some years. Have had the grasshoppers chew my grafts off they like the tender graft union wood that is still healing after the tape is removed. Keep the grass as short as possible the grasshoppers are very weakened by shorter grass. In the morning they are slow to move from the cold weather so drop your mower blades low and kill them before they can warm up enough to hop out of the way. Years ago i kept the grass short then ran a bunch of chickens over them.
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This Stayman had all its leaves and buds stripped. Only the nurses branch from the MM111 remains.
This Mammoth Blacktwig was also stripped.
This Arkansas Black still has pieces of leaves. Maybe it will pull through.
This guy had the new leaves pummeled, but I think there’s enough bud left to resprout.
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This Medaille d’Or escaped with less damage than many.
Cicada and grasshopper damage was already putting a lot of stress on these trees.
This poor Walnut seedling lost most of its leaves.
Not only was this Dolgo defoliate, the hail added insult to injury by piercing the tag too!
This Douglas pear looks rough, but I’m confident it will bounce back.
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Yes insects and the weather have been really bad this year. Next year should be a better year.
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Are they still chewing on the bark? They might come out of it just fine next year depending on how early they were defoliated… as long as they don’t eat all of the bark off. Some permethrin on the bark (high mix) in the short term might keep them from further chewing it… if rain doesn’t just wash it off.
The grasshoppers that hit me are highly migratory… and have historically been hit by airplanes during bad outbreaks.
https://www.uwyo.edu/entomology/grasshoppers/field-guide/medi.html
They move in from adjacent fields this time of year with the drought. The orchard looks like an oasis to them. I have to try to protect my smallest trees… otherwise they will give a bear hug, and strip all the bark off. They will spend the nights in the trees, and not come down until it’s warm enough… so mostly not a target for the mower. Some will just stay in the trees and chew all day. The ones on the ground will move back up into the trees toward evening. Having the orchard mowed too well (everywhere) is actually counterproductive. If they have nothing to eat, they will eat the trees. Last year, we left a strip of grass/weeds near the outer edge of trees, and the hoppers stayed in that fairly well. This year, the orchard is too well mowed… so they are heading right for the trees.
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You could use indoor paint to paint the trees. Pruning seal over the damage will slow the grasshoppers down.
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Yes, I found that mowing regularly made the issue worse by leaving the trees as a more attractive option. It’s so dry here now the grass went dormant, and they can eat trees or ragweed.
I’ve been using Seven on the trees lately, and I’m not convinced it’s helped. I’ll look at switching to something stronger, but we have heavy dew many mornings lately. Will that wash it off?
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The permethrin might wash off with rain. It might be a bit oily so idk. It would not kill the hoppers (unless you hit them directly… and probably mixed it at super-nuke level) but they wouldn’t like to eat it. The little apples here got treated with it this morning… and will be reapplied if it rains. Older grasshoppers are really tough to kill.
The latex idea is a good one too. I haven’t done that on the smaller trees just because of the time it would take… but it wouldn’t have to be reapplied. Some people don’t like to apply it on younger wood… but I often paint the graft area just so I can quickly spot the graft in the future… and it doesn’t seem to cause any issues at all.
I think you would want to protect buds for next year if you can. They will eat those right off too.
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Definately have been through this myself. Resolved the issue in multiple ways. Some years grasshoppers can be uncontrollable because of past years. Grasshoppers lay their eggs soon. I think this will help How to Step Grasshoppers From Eating All Your Plants .i’m aware there is not a lot you can do about this year at this point. Next year could be better.
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Grasshoppers really came through heavy the last week or so. Not sure where they are arriving from but like what was said above they are not easily controlled. The weather is perfect for ripening pears.
Grashoppers and other insect pressure is very high now. Many more grasshoppers than normal.
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Had our first frost yesterday, 28 degrees. Had our second this morning: 19 degrees!!!
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We’re in a frost pocket, so we’re typically at least 5 degrees colder than projected in the morning.19 to 91 in 5 days. That’s hard on things. At least we’re not in North Dakota, I guess.
All of my apples pushed through it fine. Oddly enough, it’s my native ash and cottonwood that were most caught off guard and got green leaves smoked.
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How are you all doing? We were power washing today. "Mostly sunny skies with gusty winds. High 86F. Winds S at 25 to 35 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph. " We were very blessed today the weather was perfect for what i needed to do. Couldn’t believe we got a big wind storm at just the right time.
We got to 90 today with similar wind. I guess the silver lining is the sun wasn’t too bad since there was so much dust in the air. Just a brown hue to the sky. Supposed to frost again in two days. Thunderstorms tonight.
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