Spray early and often… I delayed and woke up to see bites all over my Carmine Jewel and Juliet cherries… argh!
It’s going to rain over night and most of tomorrow, but I’m trying to decide if it is worth it to spray when I get home today even just to deter them before the rain really starts coming down. Do they feed mostly at night?
They are definitely more active at night. They try to stay hidden during the day so the birds don’t see them. But they still can feed, e.g. hit all the apples in a cluster they are hiding in. Nighttime temps really affect their activity level, they are slow at 50’s and fast at 70’s night temps.
I’ve heard that pyrethrin at dusk on the first warm evening after petal fall will do for curculios. It is not long lasting, but it nukes the whole population at once.
Im looking ahead but does surround work for JBs? Every year my leaves get destroyed by JBs. Wondering if the presence of clay on the leaves will disuade them from setting up shop.
Although there was already some PC damage, i’m hoping the surround saves my cherries.
You can also try to put a white bed sheet under the bush in early morning and shake the bush so all the PCs fall down onto the sheet and crush them with pleasure.
That looks like a reasonable level of coverage to me, not much less than that though.
My sprayer makes a finer mist so I get more smaller dots. That may or may not be better; it doesn’t run as much so it might have “taller piles” which are more likely to flake off, or maybe it doesn’t matter appreciably.
Thanks Scott,
I should look at the nozzle to see if I just failed to adjust it. I expect a finer mist would help. Last night I was rushing to get it on before the rain… which was amost non-existant. I figured something is better than nothing. Now we’re down to them expecting only a tenth of an inch or so more for my area, so hopefully the current coverage gets me through to tomorrow and I can give it another zap then.
I just wish I did this a few days ago. It is amazing the amount of fruit they can hit in a single night … and I haven’t even seen a single actual bug!
Well, my surround came in a day early today, so after I got my new batch of strawberries planted, I wanted to spray because it’s supposed to be in 60s tonight and tomorrow night, so I was worried about PC. I’ve already seen some hits on the plums and some apples, so I wanted to get something on them.
I cut open the bag and poured in a little more than 2 cups with a half gallon of water in my one gallon sprayer, waited for it to settle, shook it up, and then added another half gallon and shook that up, and headed out. Forgot to add any soap, tho.
I hit the wild plum first, I set the sprayer to a fine mist, and hit the branches the best I could, but it seemed to just drip off the tiny fruit, so I hope it leaves enough to work.
I then hit the Alkmene apple, it seemed to “stick” better to the little fruitlets. After that, I sprayed the few pears that have set, same sort of look as the plum, just seemed to drip off.
I went up the hill and hit some of the old apple trees that have already set a lot of fruit, and then the few apples that have set on my Goldrush, Liberty, Grimes Golden and Pristine trees. My last spray was on our unknown tart cherry that already has some small fruit on it, don’t know if it needed it, but thought it couldn’t hurt.
Most of the spray was used on the old trees, but still had about a quarter gallon left. It was almost dark, so I called it a day.
I’ll know how well it did tomorrow after it’s had time to dry. I’m just concerned that on the plum and pears, it didn’t seem to stick. Is this to be expected, and if it still looks thin, should I spray again? Did not adding soap make a difference in coverage?
Thanks for all the help and info. It’s nice to be actually having some fruit to spray now after three years of waiting.
The idea is to get the tree so it looks whitish when it dries. The first spraying of the season often needs to be repeated to get it that way. I have had mixed results using Surround, and even Surround with Spinosad, especially on my Honeycrisp. Don’t get your hopes up too high. I hope you have a great crop for your first harvest.
Thanks, hope we get to try a few tree fruit this year. But, it’ll be a long time before that happens, still have to deal with weather,
diseases, bigger critters, etc.
How so?
I know it is a deterrent, and that’ll take other chemicals to get really good results. I have spinosad, neem, copper also, so hopefully that’ll be a good start. Been doing this for going on 4 years now, and still have a lot to learn.
The soap really helps with sticking to the fruit. Also remember that the curculio really dislikes flying, nearly all the time he is walking. So if the limbs are covered you have him covered. Focus on the small shoots with all the fruits on them, that is where the curc is going to be walking to hit multiple fruits.
I am starting to see some curc activity in my orchard. Its reminding me of a few more tips…
So far this is a pretty good year for me, the main mistake I make is not getting things coated soon enough. This year I didn’t do that so no major stupids yet. All the damage is on trees I had already sprayed and that had a pretty decent coat on it. Note I am not using soap at all this year because I am using oil for OFM eggs on the shoot tips. The shiny fruits are not super coated but they are still generally doing OK.
I was out spraying last night and noticed some curc bites on my plums. I will probably put another coating on the plums in a few days. I didn’t see any damage to the Nanking cherries, peaches or pears.
Went out today and resprayed my trees as we had quite a bit of rain the last few days, but there was still a bit of clay left on some of the trees. I put a bit of dish soap in this batch of 2 cups of Surround in a gallon of water.
Even though I added a bit of soap, it still seems a bit runny when it’s sprayed. Would using 3 cups have made it stick better? I’ll check it tomorrow to see how it took.
I noticed on some of the trees it seems like some of the fruitlets disappeared. Would varmits, birds, or bugs be taking them, or do they just drop sometimes?
Fruits generally don’t get stolen when small but they can fall of their own accord — self-thinning. But that usually happens a bit later (its called “June drop” for a reason). Also curc-infested fruits start dropping soon, I am just starting to see a few now.
It rained a bunch here all weekend and it didn’t stop til after dark. I plan to start re-coating things tomorrow. If it was a warm night I would have put something down this evening but its going to be cool so hopefully not too much damage will happen tonight.
It looks like my Golden Transparent Gage is also getting a lot of bites. It’s right next to where my Spring Satin was and that tree was my main curc magnet. Not sure why the curc likes certain trees more than others but it certainly does. Fortunately 95% of my trees are getting very little damage so far. I am right in the thick of it now, two more weeks of heavy curc pressure before things start easing up a bit.
I figured they just dropped, I have seen some PC hits, but it’s not too bad yet.
Is the idea with Surround to get just enough to cover the fruit a bit more with each spray, or just spray when it looks like it’s almost washed off? I can see the white on my trees from distance, but it doesn’t look encrusted like what I’ve seen in pictures.
On some fruit, like plums or the bigger apple fruitlets, it hardly seems to stick at all, just mostly runs off. And that’s using the mist setting on my sprayer, not a stream. Would using 3 cups instead of 2 make a difference in coverage?
When does your PC “season” usually start to let up, I’ve read that in a lot of places (including here) that there’s usually just one generation to deal with, as opposed to coddling moth. When does CM start to show up in your orchard, and do you start to add anything else to your Surround to combat them?
You don’t need to have your trees look encrusted, all you need is enough on all the little limbs so the curc will be constantly annoyed as it walks along them. Don’t worry so much about whether the fruits are all covered, if you have the limbs covered you should be OK. Of course if you can cover the fruits as well its better. With apples I try to hit the clusters directly and the Surround will stick well there. Note that sometimes after a rain the trees will look white but if you grab the limbs you will get little white stuff on you. That is because only a small bit is left and that small bit seems to stick more tenaciously. I would not call that good protection. Get used to grabbing limbs to check how good the coat is so you can gauge how much more spraying may be needed.
The main reason to re-apply is either there is new growth or rain washed it off. The goal is to maintain a more or less constant coat through curc season. For me it usually ends around the start of June, but Euro plums I need to keep on a bit longer as they can get really late bites on the necks. Usually fruit quarter-sized or larger the curc will skip, and on apples and pears even dime sized causes the curc to lose interest. But Euro plums will look appetizing until the curc is out of eggs. The reason why the curc likes small fruits is the worm needs to eat the seed for it to drop, and if there is a shell formed it can’t do that.
I don’t think using 2 vs 3 cups makes that much difference, but a rough guide is to use the 3 when you are starting over and the 2 when there is already some there to build on.
Ok, thanks. I checked out things today, and it seemed like the plums got a bit better coverage this time with the addition of soap, as well as some of the apples.
Does PC usually just crawl up the tree, as opposed to flying onto them? Would fruit higher up on the tree be less likely to be hit? I’ve also been spraying my tart cherry tree and bush with Surround, is that necessary? I figured it couldn’t hurt.
When does CM start to show up in your orchard, if it does?
I think they mostly craw, but can fly. I had limited plums this year and it seems most of mine were hit by PC. Next year I’ll spray a week earlier and try to get a better coat, but I agree that the surround seems to just run off the baby plums. I also need to get a better sprayer.
I also sprayed my Nanking cherries and haven’t seen any of the classic crescent moon shape on the baby fruits.
Since the PCs mainly crawl on the branches, would it harm anything to spray the trees with Surround with a bit of soap, but no Spinosad, BEFORE the flower buds open? The bees seem to fly directly to the blossom, so would it affect them at all? Has anyone tried it?
