I have a bit of about every apple disease it seems, but no appreciable Marssonina or Glomerella thus far. I am doing 3-4 myclo sprays in April-May and no more after that. Various spray recommendations are more the June-August period for Masssonina, but the spores release around bloom time and I’ve got my trees drenched in myclo then… not sure why they don’t recommend more early sprays. I also do a similar thing for brown rot on stone fruit, the recs are spray in summer before harvest but I spray only April-May and end up with almost no brown rot. A stitch in time seems to still be saving nine?
I still have lots of summer fruit rot on my apples and am going to be using Merivon next year for that. This year for example Ashmead’s Kernel 100% rotted.
Interesting! We underestimated the problem with summer rots on Apples and we have never been able to control them. Indar solves the rot problem for us on Peaches.
We keep hearing we need to reduce our fungicide spray intervals for Apples when it rains but we refuse to spray every 7 days. I’m told that Merivon is very effective against bitter rot on Apples, but we spray Merivon and still have major rot problems. The fungus that causes bitter rot on apple fruit also causes Glomerella and defoliation of the leaves. Looks like we will loose all of the Pink Lady and a lot of the Goldrush to rot this year. Old Fashion Winesaps look a lot better.
We read and try to implement the most current information provided by the research trials for commercial Apples in our state but we still have rot problems. We will work some Myclobutanil sprays into the plan for next April and May and see what happens. The research for my area has not shown it to be super effective for rot on Apples but I have noticed that the most effective chemicals in the research studies are also often the most expensive!
The early sprays are completely inadequate to prevent MLB here. It hasn’t gotten everywhere yet, even in my region. Every place it has shown up got 3 spring fungicide sprays. I figure it will eventually introduce itself to your orchard, but I hope not.
I picked a few Hooples yesterday and just tried one. Not bad, but I don’t think it has improved any in the last two weeks. Still 14 brix, slightly less acid, slightly less crunchy. Should probably shoot for 2nd week of September in the future. I’ve only got a couple branches of it.
It’s hard to have as much flavor as Ashmeads. Of course AK also has plenty of rot and bitter pit. My AK also doesn’t have a great set. The small branch of Spitzenburg on the AK has a lot more apples. Which reminds me, when do you generally pick Spitzenburg?
Hooples isn’t too bad for me. It’s leaves are still green (you can tell what my standards are…).
I wonder if Hooples is doing better from getting an extra bit of fungacide in passing when I sprayed a nearby plum. While the Goldrush is between 2 jujubes which don’t get any spray. I haven’t generally summer sprayed apples in the past, but I should probably just do them at the same time as the peaches (probably sprayed fungicide 3-4 times, after the spring fungi/insect sprays). If I’m mixing up the tank, it isn’t that much extra work to hit a few more trees.
Usually by the first of October. It often doesn’t set well on my property but is consistent at a couple of other ones. This year it set very well as did most varieties in my orchard.
After I saw your message, I went out and picked one last night. 15 brix and a good sharp flavor. Though not as good as the ones I had at the orchard you manage. I looked up the thread and they were 17-19 brix on November 9, 2017. It could also be that this branch didn’t get great sun exposure, partially due to hanging down from the weight of the fruit.
I decided to try one today. Love it, really good apple. It looks only partially russetted, but it feels fully russetted. Feels light, low density. This one had begun getting eaten by wasps, although I didn’t notice until after I picked it. Also had a little apple maggot and very localized codling moth core to calyx. In spite all of those things, I got 60+% good delicious apple from it.
BTW, the main crop Brunswick fig with the split eye was moldy tasting bad timing with the rains, hopefully a few more will ripen up in this warm dry patch.
bad timing with the rains, hopefully a few more will ripen up in this warm dry patch.