So historically I have had major issues with Cedar Rust on my apple trees.
This year, I sprayed twice (10 days apart) with a mix of neem oil and bonide copper. (though some people say never to mix the two, others swear by it, ugh)
I plan to use Immunox Fungicide at least twice when the rust galls open, most likely 3, to be safe.
Beyond that, I am a bit lost.
Some tables say to keep spraying the oil throughout the year every 7-10 days to keep back insects. Others say keep doing fungicide every 7-10 days. Some folks add sulfur to the Immunox after petal fall. Some switch to a DIFFERENT fungicide after Immunox so as not to build up an immunity.
The information is all over the place and I’m not sure what to follow. Do I keep spraying my neem oil? I know copper I should stop after bloom or it russets fruit.
It would be helpful if you told us what state you are in. Disease and insect pressure varies greatly depending on location and that effects how much spraying you have to do and what you have to spray for. I would first take a look at Alan’s spray schedule to get a general feel for a simple spray schedule.
Neem oil and other oils in general are effective for only narrow range of things such as mites and have no effect on fungus that attacks apple tree leaves/fruit or any of the insects that attack the fruit. Generally, you are going to spray it once a year in the Spring or not at all.
Copper is similar in that it is usually sprayed in the Spring only for certain issues.
Immunox is a good choice for Cedar Apple rust. It is prone to developing fungus resistance . To control this you can alternate it with another fungicide or mix it with Captan to reduce the risk of resistance. Also the label on Immunox restricts you in the number of sprays you can do in a year to help prevent resistance from developing. Note Captan is pH sensitive and you will need to adjust your spray water pH to the 5-7 range before adding the Captan since Captan breaks down quickly in high pH water. If you’re interested using Captan we can give you additional information on how to adjust pH if you need it.
Also read all the labels of the chemicals you are spraying carefully. The label restricts what you can legally use the chemical for and the restrictions are based on actual field testing again the fungus or insect you are trying to kill. On the internet there are a lot of claims that Neem oil and copper works against all kinds of problems and that is simply not true.
Whoops I could have sworn I included the location in the header but I guess it was lost in the copy paste.
I have 4 trees that are 3 years old, 1 whip, and 13 newly grafted onto rootstock.
I figured immunox wouldn’t be able to serve me for the whole year but I wasn’t sure what/why to alternate it.
Neem would have been an attempt to protect against mites and aphids. There’s a chance I had caterpillar damage last year too, but I don’t know what pests I’m dealing with yet so I didn’t want to bomb the tree with insecticide. Though I’m hearing good things about organic clay for that?
My schedule should work perfectly in Massachusetts as long as you don’t live on the shore, then things can be complicated by all the additional moisture, but it would still work for most pests.
I’m in MA, and until my local critters learned that plastic bags meant there was food inside, I got good protection from insect damage and ceder apple rust on the apples by bagging them with ordinary ziplock baggies. I still had damage to the leaves, of course, but they can stand up to a certain amount of leaf damage.
Welcome our Taxachusettes fellow. There are at least 10 of us here from the Cape to the Pioneer Valley.
Two spray of myclobutanil is enough to protect against cedar apple rust. It alsi helps eliminate scab, sooty blotch and fly spec, common apple diseases.
If you are determined, you can even grow apples organically here. I grow stone fruit, too, so it is not possible to go all organic.
We are progressing nicely into the season. In late winter I did 2 sprays of a Neem Oil and copper mixture. Then when temperatures went up and rain became heavy I did 2 sprays with (myclobutanil) 10 days apart.
Now I’m wondering what the next step is. My trees range from tight cluster all the way to open bloom on a few varieties. Seems I should not be doing any oil, nor any insecticide until the petals fall. But this has me nervous as I already see some leaf damage from, I think, ants.
I am planning on doing 1-2 more sprays of Immunox simply because I am absolutely surrounded by cedar trees. After that… seems I just hold tight until petal fall, and then dip into insecticides.
I was already leaning towards an organic clay solution, and now both guides have suggested Surround. I think for this year, Surround may be the only thing I spray with. Truth is, the leaves got so butchered last year by Rust that I could not tell what other pests there might have been. Someone suggested I had mites and black rot, so hopefully the Neem Oil and copper+fungicide took care of that for this year.
I’ll have to be watchful and see if I get any curc damage, if stink bugs or aphids appear, etc, and then run out to grab some of the other things suggested. I’m hoping Surround will be enough. Or do you folks think it’s really silly not to also get spinosad and regalia?
And thank you for the welcome! I don’t quite mind the Taxes here because they helped me get a pretty good education and once I was off my awful private insurance, some of the best health care around. Let’s hope I can put this renewed body to good use. Wonder if any of the growers here from the Valley are folks I’ve bought apples from!