So I’m a terrible peach grower (see last year link below). My goal this year is to spray and eat one. I see the spray schedule links but am a bit confused still
I just pruned the trees to open centers and they are at red/pink buds. Pulled all mummified peaches out of trees. Too late for dormant oil I guess. So what to hit them with? Bonide copper? Can you get indar at local stores?
From the previous year you can see I got bad fungus problems. Hopefully make some progress this year
Here is what i sprayed one year and it resulted in perfect fruit. I switch up pesticides sometimes but some are always used. This is just an example of what I do, no more than that.
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.
2018 05 29 Plant Guard (4tbs) can be used every 14 days 3 sprays left
2018 06 06 Fruit Tree Spray (2.5 tbs) 21 days 1 spray left.
2018 06 14 Infuse (2tbs) 2 sprays left, Ortho Flower, fruit, and vegetable (3 tbs)
2018 06 28 Plant Guard (4tbs) can be used every 14 days 2 sprays left
2018 07 15 Infuse (2tbs) 1 spray left, Ortho Flower, fruit, and vegetable (3 tbs)
For dormant protection
2018 11 23 Lime-sulfur with oil
Apply 4 fl. oz. lime-sulfur plus 1 1/4 fl
. oz. dormant spray oil per gallon of water.
Except for the copper, everything else needs to be in acidic water. Like Malathion (which is in in one of the products listed) will last 2 hours with tap water. Malathion will last 30 hours in water with a pH of 5.0.
If you cannot measure pH try 1 tbs of vinegar, always add water first then vinegar, then pesticides.
As a fellow Tennessean, I feel your pain and I’ve lost entire crops to brown rot before I learned to control it. For me, I use copper and oil when buds start to swell. Then I spray with captan and Myclobutanil about every 10 days from petal drop until fruit is a week from ripe. 100% prevents brown rot on the same trees that lost every fruit to it before.
BTW…can you tell me/us about that 2 x 4 leaning against your tree with a section of pipe attached to it? I suspect its some kind of squirrel or rat control but I’m very curious about it!
Hi There I am glad that Kevin @thecityman has chimed in. He is in your vicinity and has experienced the pain you just did.
I like would to mentioned that it is not just brown rot that you have to fight against. You need to be able to handled the two biggest pest in theveast coast, plum curculio and Oriental Fruit moths. Those two, once attack your fruit, can bring on brown rot as well. They are abundant and can do serious damage in a short time i.e. one night
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You need protection against brown rot (fungicide) and against insect (insecticide) at the same time.
I keep reading about all the brown rot growers farther south must battle. I have grown peaches in SE WI now for 20 years and never got brown rot on any of my peach trees. I have fought it on tart cherry one year when it seemed to rain every day the week they ripened. Also had it on plums.
I never tried Indar but I do use Captan. If I was in Tennessee, I think I would buy and use Indar as so many swear by the results.
@mamuang makes an excellent point that I actually even thought about after I posted and wondered if I should have mentioned to you, not knowing your level of knowledge. But she is 100% right…growing fruit here, especially stone fruit like peaches and plums, requires you to not only fight several diseases/fungi (which is why I use both Captan and Myclobutanil (Immunex)) but also involves an all out war against insects- especially the PC and OFM Tippy just mentioned. THey, too, can and have cost me every single piece of fruit on a tree(s) if I go too long without spraying and they reach the right life cycle when I’m asleep at the wheel. For what its worth, I have had the best luck with a product called Imidan 70 WP when it comes to pest control.
Every single chemical I’ve mentioned can be bought at your local farmer’s co-op. They will have to order it and it usually takes about 7-10 days. Good luck.
Imidan appears to be very effective insecticide. Unfortunately, it is not to be used in a residential area. I live in town. I cannot use Imidan. Please read labels (at least online) before you spend money buying chemicals.
@Spartan upper midwest, WI, MI have better climate than here in the east coast. You have fewer diseases. Lucky you.
I do not imagine TN being that different from Va. One or two sprays of Koicide Copper during the off season after leaves drop and before bud break. Indar and Captan are two great fungicides, if Indar is not available substitute with Immunox. I would do my first two sprays with both fungicides then switch to immunox or indar only. I have found you do not need to spray peaches as often as what is described on the schedule mentioned on the fungicide label if you do not get a lot of rain. The first two sprays are very important. I have gotten by with as little of two sprays. The only effective insecticide against plum curcilio that is not commercial that I have found is permethrin. It can be sprayed near houses. Pemthrin should be used for peaches only - on apples and pears it will kill good bugs which will lead to other issues. You should start spraying peaches immediately after petal fall for plum curcilio.
Prop. is not longer available in a backyard grower formulation as Monterey Fungus Fighter has been taken off the market. This is a lot of money for too much fungicide, but I wonder if Luna Experience (apparently named in honor of Jimi Hendrix) isn’t a more affordable substitute for Indar. I am considering using it in rotation but I want to learn more about it.
I would be inclined to rely on a combination of Captan and sulfur rather than Myclo. However, I’m not speaking out of the more reliable realm of experience, but I do believe that Myclo is not all that effective. I don’t know if you have to keep applying Captan and sulfur during the entire development period for stonefruit or if you can begin a month before ripening. I would try the latter.
LOL
Not really funny . . . But ME TOO. I feel your pain. I have the same one!
I too - got no fruit last year . . . . . well . . . does ONE apple count?
I think it probably takes doing it - for several years - to get the hang of it. And I think it takes an almost weekly date with our sprayers. Yippeeeeeee!
I’m still foggy about what to do between the ‘dormant oil/copper spray’ and bloom?
That would be the ‘second spray’. Is this spray a continuation of fungal control? Should I be spraying weekly after that first spray - up until buds open up? Always alternating chems? Not at all?
I guess it would be a lot simpler if everything was at the same stage - at the same time. But the apples and pears are dormant. The stone fruit is about to bust out in bloom. The figs don’t look too good. ? Have NO idea what to do about them . . . if anything. Grape buds are just peeking out. I know I need to spray . . . But I freeze - so afraid I’ll put something on a tree that is in a ‘sensitive’ stage and that should not be sprayed with sulphur, or not sprayed with copper again . . . or sprayed with something totally different? Is there some simple way to get a handle on this?
I think I’m going to follow @Drew51’s schedule. It seems quite straight-forward. And I’ll keep my eye on Scott’s, as well. I ordered Surround this week - impossible to find locally. But found that I was not the only one asking the ‘heavy duty’ garden centers around here, about Surround. Maybe by next year someone will stock it. Meanwhile - I ordered it from 7 Springs.
My final question is this . . .
Considering the price of Indar. If I add up all the other chemicals I’ve purchased - maybe they cost more than just getting the Indar! And then what would I need - to rotate with the Indar? If it could be just Indar . . . and one other. That could be doable. @mrsg47 - what would you suggest?
I’ll be watching all the answers to @TN-Apple . Same issues. Southeastern VA.
That’s not true, Bonide still makes it in the product called “Infuse”
That is a very good point. I try to get one spray in between copper and bloom. During bloom you do nothing until pedal fall. Let me go over my sprays and why I use them. If you can bear with me.
My main targets are brown rot and the plum curculio .AKA PC.
Because often home products have both a fungicide and an insecticide , at times I need only one. But we just don’t have any good option sometimes.
Bonide’s Fruit Tree and Plant Guard has a pyrethroid insecticide that kills everything including PC. Very effective. And it contains 2 fungicides that are very effective against brown rot. These fungicides are only available to the home orchardist in this product. It uses a different mode of action against brown rot than all other brown rot products available for home use. It is the most effective brown rot control you can buy for home use. Brown rot also causes a blossom blight besides the rotting of fruit. So you want to get this product on at least once before bloom to prevent BB.
Bonide’s Infuse which replaces Fungi Fighter (same chemical). It also works fairly well against brown rot. Uses a different method of attack than Plant Guard. So using these two attack brown from 2 flanks.
( Flank attacks on the strategic level are seen when a nation or group of nations surround and attack an enemy from two or more directions,) This devastates brown rot. Indar uses the same mode of action as Infuse, although it is better than Infuse. So use one of these not both! Since they attack exactly the same way. I don’t want to go into detail but to understand how these work. Indar and Infuse belongs to the sterol demethylation inhibitor (DMI) class of
fungicides or target site of action Group 3 fungicide. Plant guard works differently a Group 1 or Group 2 fungicide. I forget? And don’t feel like looking it up.
This approach has eliminated brown rot completely from my garden. Always follow all label directions, it’s the law for one thing, and it works better if you do.
Bonide’s Fruit Tree Spray has Captan and Malathion in it. So I actually use three fungicides to stop brown rot, and other fungal diseases.
You can spray the dormant copper to try and prevent fig rust. Besides that no other sprays. If SWD fruit fly becomes a problem I bag with organza bags.
I spray lime-sulfur once grapes form. Some grapes cannot be sprayed with sulfur, test a small area and see how they do.
I covered that above.
I don’t grow apples, so I cannot advise, I do know many if not all products mentioned can be used on apples. See product labels.
So after pedal fall I spray for brown rot and the insecticides are for PC and SWD, and Japanese beetles. SWD will eat stone fruit too. Looking at my schedule I attack early in the year. Usually by July I no longer need to spray PC is gone. I have some late ripening fruit and may continue the brown rot sprays. But don’t spray more times in a season than the label allows.
Thanks Drew. I searched for the ingredient and couldn’t find the Bonide formula. That is what I would recommend for home growers- hopefully the label calls for a strong enough app for it to be effective.
I hadn’t researched what was available for home growers for a few years. This is helpful for me when my DIY customers ask me what to use. I’m going to update my spray schedule here in guides.
In the northeast I routinely get sound harvests with only 2 insecticide sprays but the longer the growing season the more the pressure, especially in humid regions. That said, I believe that home growers can usually get by with far fewer sprays than commercial growers in the same region but the only way to know how low a spray schedule you can get away with is to take some risks and observe closely. I’m glad I took those risks early on- it has saved me dozens of unnecessary sprays over the years,
The only thing I can think of is Surround, but It really doesn’t address rot issues. I shipped Surround to France by mistake, but it got through. I will use copper and a sticker(olive oil) and one fungicide. Thats all I have so far.
