Like most of you, my trees bloomed MUCH MUCH earlier this year (3 weeks in most cases). Between the early blooming and me being busy dealing with life’s little problems, I’ve totally blown it this year…I didn’t do my dorman oil and copper spray. I know- its shameful and the first time I have completely missed these sprays in 7 years.
To be honest, I’m much more worried about missing the copper than the oil. I’ve never had much of a problem with some of the things oils are designed to kill/smother. But missing the copper is very worrisome. In the past it has helped with peach leaf curl and, at least I think, with several other things.
There may be others in a similar situation this year since most of us got surprised early. So my question is, what now? BTW…I’m mostly talking about stone fruits. Apples and some pears I can still get to because they are just waking up.
I will still have a (sort of) window between petal fall and leaves. SHould I still try to put copper on my stone fruits? THey may have the very very start of leaves in most cases, but not much at all. BUt of course they will have tiny tiny fruitlets at petal fall. What can I do now and when should I do it? SHould I use maybe a 1/2 strength copper? Should I just do an earlier spray of captan or Myclobutinyl (I have both) to try and stop the things copper would have? Perhaps I should even use imidan immediately after petal drop/end of bee interest to make up for the oil I didn’t spray. If so, what stage and which of those 2 should I use?
The answers here may benefit more than just me, if not this year than in future years. Either way, it would be very helpful to know exactly what do do when/if someone completely misses the oil/copper window?
Thanks all.