Hello everyone. I just found this forum and hopefully I can learn how to make my fruit trees productive.
I live in Northeast Ohio USA.
I have 6 fruit trees on my horse farm. 5 are elderly trees likely 30-40 (maybe older) years old. 2 are Granny Smith green apples, 1 is a sweet red apple but I don’t know the type, there is a plum of unknown variety, a Persimmon and a Honeycrisp that I planted 3 years ago.
I purchased the farm 6 years ago and it appeared the elderly fruit trees had not been pruned in many years. I cared for fruit trees in Bakersfield California as a teenager (40 years ago) and simply pruned and fertilized them for excellent yields.
Ohio is a whole different ballgame. I pruned the apple trees the first year I had the farm (2019) and had decent luck with the Granny Smith’s. The red apples were devoured by deer and what appeared to be rust. Last year I tried spraying with neem oil but basically had similar results, decent Granny Smith’s and maybe 2-3 red apples. However my trees were decimated by the rust. I asked a local nursery what could be done about the rust and they suggested neem oil and copper sulfate. So far this spring I pruned in March, sprayed neem oil and fertilizer spikes mid March and sprayed copper sulfate 2 weeks later.
Finally the questions…
With such a severe rust infection last year and the damp humid conditions of NE Ohio, are there any suggestions as to frequency of copper spraying? Oil spraying? Other treatments?
I’m also in NE Ohio. There are some varieties that just get CAR so bad it affects the fruit. I know Honeycrisp can be a tough one for a lot of people.
Hopefully someone else will jump in with spray suggestions as I’m not a sprayer of much. I’ve tried to plant mostly disease resistant trees (here’s a thread you might find useful). A consideration would be adding or grafting some of these in to help ensure a decent crop during bad rust years.
I know organic is all the rage. But for severe infections; bite the bullet and spray early and liberally with a good fungicide. It may take a season or 2 to get it under control and treatable more organically later.
Lol…As a service tech my area contained the “Cult Triangle” of central North Florida. Home of dozens of odd sects and their high walled fenced in compounds. They all shared one thing in common. Organic farming.
Which often was merely oddly dressed people pounding up dirt and dust around many dead sprigs and tree saplings.
Sorry guys. North Florida is the very worst choice for organic farming. Mud and Dust is the most reliable organic crop there.
Bobandpeni welcome to the site. Lots of helpful people and good useful information.
I am in SW Ohio so even though we are in opposite sides of the state we have similar apple tree diseases and issues.
Growing fruit “organically” is really not an option IF you want decent fruit. I have to spray often if I want fruit that I can actually use without cutting the majority off of the fruit because of insect damage and disease issues. I’ve tried getting help from OSU about the disease and insect issues but without any type of luck . I’ve called and emailed and visited my 2 local OSU / Ohio Extension agencies and had similar results- none. Lot of round and round talking from them. So I stopped going and contacting them.
ANYWAY, getting back to your questions. Using neem oil for trees is basically useless. The neem oil is okay for direct contact if the insects are present. However, if insects come back to your trees the neem oil does not really do anything. Neem is okay for house plants or if you have like wooly aphids in one area on a tree. Use a sticking agent in your spraying. It helps to keep the spray on the tree longer of you get some sort of light rain. I usually spray every 10-14 days depending on if we have had rains or sooner of the rain was heavy, say over an inch at a time. Spring is tough because of the many, many rain storms we usually have. You can extend the time between the sprays later in the season once the rains slow down. Last year we had a huge drought and I did not spray very much . I basically stopped spraying the trees after about end of June. No insect or disease issues on the fruit trees.
I use Bonide products on my fruit trees. NOT the products that have neem oil in them.
Clearly I found the right forum. Thank you for your many replies!
I’m kind of stuck with the varieties that are on the farm and I’d like to do what’s necessary to encourage strong healthy apple production. The Granny’s are pretty rust resistant but the elderly red and honeycrisp are not. I did purchase the honeycrisp from a local nursery and it was supposed to be grafted to a tree that thrives in NE Ohio…but who knows, I’m a complete amateur at this.
dannytoro1, I agree completely. I’ll do whatever I need to do to bring the rust under control and then hopefully go more organic as the fungus improves. Any suggestions on fungicides? I used the Bonide fruit tree fungicide last year but I really didn’t see any improvement. Perhaps I was using it incorrectly? I got a (hopefully) better hose sprayer for this season.
I don’t know what a vector is, can you explain?
MikeC, I’ve had OSU come to our farm to inspect our grazing pastures. They were very helpful. I’ve not ever asked them for help with my fruit trees though since they are really a hobby and not part of my business. Perhaps I will contact them just to try. In the mean time, what products do you use to spray? I sprayed neem oil a lot last year (maybe every 14 days, which got pretty expensive) and it seemed to have ZERO effect on the rust. As I said, I got copper for this year and sprayed at the end of March. My leaves are just breaking out and I’m wondering when it will be safe again to spray.
I have a couple questions about my plum tree and will start another thread for that tree.
Welcome to the forum Bob. As a fellow NE Ohioan with some apple trees, including a few honey crisp, I have had success with a couple of maximum strength copper sprays during dormancy and usually 1 application of fungicide which I believe is Tebuconazole, but don’t quote me on that
If you haven’t picked up a sticker yet for your copper sprays I highly recommend that
I’m in coastal Jersey where cedars are plentiful and with that both CAR and quince rust. I rely on immunox (myclobutanil) and captan coupled with Nufilm to combat them. Last year I didn’t get my spray on early enough and got slammed. I just put my first spray on over the weekend. Probably a bit early but the weather is warming quickly and I’m not missing it again this year.