By the way I will try to update this guide soon. I am now using multiple synthetics to control diseases instead of sulphur/serenade, and I also use several different organic moth controls. I don’t spray after mid-June but am still getting a pretty clean crop. I stopped using mating disruption for the moths and didn’t really notice much difference.
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Would this Spray Schedule apply to NY zone 6b? I’m 2 years in to growing fruit and am a bit overwhelmed at all the factors to consider for spray scheduling. Looking for succinct starting place for zone 6b, or maybe I just need to study this schedule thru and thru…
Sure this should be good for 6b. I am in 7a.
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This is a great post and thread, thanks.
Edit: I think I answered my own question after digging more. It sounds like the cautions against mixing oil and sulfur are based around an assumption that it will be used in the growing season. But for true dormant use there is no foliage that it could damage. This doc cited above seems to have the most specific guidelines: https://orcalinc.com/assets/uploads/2018/11/Lime_Sulfur_ULTRA1e_Label.pdf
original question--------------
Is there any consensus on the issues with mixing sulfur and dormant oils? Many sources in this thread (and the label on my bottle of powdered sulfur) say do not mix sulfur and dormant oil. Other sources say mix lime-sulfur into the dormant oil. Rather confusing.
Right now I’m thinking the conservative approach would be to apply sulfur mixed in water to the pears to control blister mite, and use the dormant oil (for aphid control) for the cherries and plums. But, I’m probably more than two weeks from pear blossom so I guess I could alternatively spray dormant oil on everything now then try to hit the mites with sulfur in two weeks.
Yup! It is very confusing. The only thing to watch is with apricots, they don’t like sulfur.
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Yep, thanks.
I also tracked down some lime-sulfur pet dip, so I think i’ll spray the cots with straight oil and then add the lime sulfur and do the rest. Hopefully this will cover both the cherry plum aphids and the pear mites.
After the first couple weeks of leaf growth, my cherries and plums are completely free from aphids and leaf curl. They look beautiful. I will be doing late dormant lime sulfur + dormant oil spray every year. Thanks again.
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If the aphids are black ones and they come back this year put a ring of tanglefoot all the way around the trunk. This keeps ants from moving up the trunk. If there are no ants to milk/move the aphids they will fade away.
I saw a column of ants marching up one of my cherries a few weeks ago and put the tanglefoot on them … no more ants! I never saw any leaf curl or aphids but I’m sure there was some somewhere.
I just got my first delivery of Surround, Regalia and Spinosad. Can you mix and match any/all of these products?
I sprayed surround and Spinosad this morning but than we got some rain and a fair amount of the coat washed off. should i do another round of surround soon, or wait a min of a week like the package says?
My strategy is I redo after an inch of rain or when it’s looking thin (which is after a week or ten days). I hardly ever redo it in a few days, if I see an inch of rain coming I will try to hold off. It’s not always perfect, just do as good as you can and if you are on the fence on what to do, spray! This year I held off spraying too long waiting for the wind to calm down and I got too much curc damage. I should have just sprayed in the wind and made a bit of a mess.
Yep I have the tanglefoot still on the trunks from when I was battling aphids and ants last year. It still seems to be sort of working but I think it’s time to refresh it.
Also the lime sulfur + dormant oil cleared up the pear leaf blister mites on my Flemish beauty. Too bad a freak windstorm defoliated more than half the tree!
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Glad to hear things are looking good for you. You already figured out the LS/oil thing. I do one fall app of copper (kocide) in the fall and two apps of LS/oil in the spring. One right as buds are waking up and right at tight cluster to fist pink. I planned to spray a much lighter does of LS at petal fall, leaves were 2-4". I contacted a Brandt rep who knows lime sulfur and whose actually local to me. He advised to not do this even though there is a growing rate listed in the instructions. He stated that’s only for severe issues and can often cause more harm than good. I run Scott’s program with a couple add ons. I tank mix surround, BT, BA (Bacillus amyloliquefaciens), spinosad, hort oil, Madex HP and raw milk (10%). Madex and milk are new this year for me. I didn’t have much fruit make it past spring frosts last year, but what I did have came out pretty good. I have regular dry sulfur and may try that if the other things don’t seem to be keeping up. Sorry to hear about the storms. We had hail that took half my peaches last week. It’s never ending. Good luck!
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Thats interesting that the rep didn’t like l-s during the growing season. I myself didn’t do it very often, but I know a lot of apple growers do it for scab. It can cause russeting. Also my guess is people mixed it with oil or captan and got a disaster but didn’t realize the mix was the cause.
It sounds like you generally have a good mix of sprays, if you are coating things well you should be making progress on the bugs front.
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Whoops. I forgot to mention our conversation mostly was concerned with peaches. Yes, I think he said apples and pears do better, but also mentioned the russeting. Hoping to keep it organic. Won’t be for a lack of exhausting myself if I have to move into synthetics.