I was just about to post something about fungicides and then evilpaul,beats me to it,by about five minutes,with the same study from MSU.So.after editing a little,I’ll add a link to Appendix 1,in the first paragraph.
After reading the comments about bees and possible harm to them when spraying,I realized my knowledge was fairly limited about it.But there is info about the subject online.
This is from Michigan State University.It’s a chart on recommendations for them.It turns out,there are a lot of fungicides,that aren’t detrimental to them.
Some insecticide’s potency is amplified though,when mixed with particular fungicides,where alone,it isn’t as injurious.
We need to separate native pollinators from honeybees. Honeybees are no longer considered under threat.
These issues are very hard to study and even if you kill a certain amount of natives in spring, how do you know how much that affects their population by fall when we are talking about a small orchard surrounded by unsprayed flowering plants all around? It is certainly reasonable to imagine that the population would completely rebound by the end of the season.
I do not notice any drop in population from the sprays I do and blooming plants on my property are always vigorously tended by natives. I do weed whack flowering weeds near my trees before spraying insecticides.
Loss of habitat is a known problem and growing food on land that would otherwise be relatively sterile turf is a plus for decreasing other land for ag thereby increasing natural habitat.
That MSU list of fungicides and bee toxicity is a useful one. I noticed two common fungicides that I use have some toxicity - captan and chlorothalonil. Many fungicides have no known effect on bees.
I don’t see any of the fungicides I use in the list other than chlorothalonil/Daconil. Given the other restrictions on it (post-fruitset), I may just retire it entirely. Or only use it in a Feb dormant spray for PLC.
I am considering using it in early spring for black knot. I have read that chlorothalonil is the only fungicide that is effective. Black knot has gotten more and more serious on my E plums.
We are so excited, we’ve had our Harko nectarine for a little over two years, but this is the first year that it has fruit buds on it (and it’s also the first year that it’s been in the ground and not in a pot). I am so hopeful that we will get to try some, we already have bagged the fruit buds and crossed fingers and toes.
It’s hard when you are first starting out and everything’s new and you’re just waiting to get to try something.
Commercial plum growers routinely spray and focus on removing black knots on infected twigs and branches in the winter. Fungicides are applied starting at green cluster and repeated at seven- to 10-day intervals until shoot growth ends around mid-June. Fungicides containing chlorothalonil (FRAC Group M5) are the standard treatment to control this disease. Chlorothalonil sprays are applied during the prebloom and bloom period and also control blossom brown rot. Chlorothalonil cannot be used after shuck split on exposed fruit if that fruit is going to be harvested for human consumption. Chlorothalonil can be used after bloom on ornamental trees where there is no fruit harvest. Fungicide choices for commercial fruit growers after shuck split include Indar (fenbuconazole, FRAC Group 3) and Topsin-M (thiophanate methyl, FRAC Group 1). Sulfur is not an effective control material for this disease. See Michigan State University Extension bulletin E0154, “Michigan Fruit Management Guide,” for any changes and current commercial recommendations.
I have sprayed wounds from cutting out black knot with chlor, and that didn’t help either. I don’t know if it’s true, but a commercial grower in NY told me years ago that plums were grown as temporary trees where black knot was presumed to cut the lives of the trees after a relatively short life- you cut them down and replant.
What I know is pressure varies a great deal from site to site, and I’m cursed with a very good site for black knot to thrive. I’m in a hollow that is protected from wind and cuts off early and late sun. I’m not making a lot of money on my plum trees, my helper spends a great deal of time cutting out the galls.
I am very excited that I may be getting fruit for the first time on this nectarine tree and depending on harvest window this might be the first tree fruit I’ll ever get to harvest. Its Morton if anyone else has grown it. Could anyone advise me as to how to help shape this tree? I’m thinking of a mid-season pruning hopefully after fruit harvest (if they make it), but it is very lopsided. I have never fertilized this tree but was thinking of giving it some nitrogen in the near future. It set something like 30-40 fruitlets, is about 6ft tall, I probably have to thin some but I hate to. So far, so dry which could mean great fruit.
Hi. I have 2 nectarine trees. I pruned with an open center, ‘vase’ shape. This allows light and air to move into and through the tree.
I would remove any ‘upward’ center branches - so that you have 3 or 4 good branches, spaced quite evenly around the trunk. Preferable each of these at a different height on the trunk - or coming off the trunk at intervals of at least a few inches - and at a wide angle - yet not completely horizontal. If they all originate at the same height - you risk ‘splitting’ at that juncture. Same thing applies to a branch that is headed straight out, perpendicular to the trunk - instead of having a slightly ‘up-angled’ growth from the trunk.
Depending on how tall you are (!) or how far up you want to be able to reach . . . choose the lowest branch at a height that will allow for growth that feels comfortable to you. I think most advice is to let the lowest branch ‘come off the trunk’ at an 18" height. I usually choose one a little bit higher . . . so I have some clearance to work ‘under’ the tree.
Then train towards an ‘outward’ growth - and pruning off any branches that grow downward, straight up, or inward (toward the tree’s center).
I have also learned that it is good not to let the smaller, narrower branches grow too long (learned this the hard way!) Do what you can to ‘avoid spindly’ branches. When they fruit, they will bend, hang down, and may split.
It’s difficult to tell from your photo - which branch is growing in each direction. ? But from the top - you want to shoot for a ‘pinwheel’ effect. It is often ‘painful’ to open up the center by removing what appear to be nice strong branches, on a young tree. But . . . it will be worth it. And it won’t take long to see why!
Thanks so much for your input! Open center definitely seems to be the way to go! I’ll be honest I know I should have pruned this earlier in the year but it was too “painful” as you say for me to make big cuts, I had a feeling fruit was coming so I decided to stick with the bad shape this year in order to get to try my own home grown stone fruit.
As you point out yes, open growth and a pinwheel shape sounds ideal. The problem is many branches are much more on the right hand side of the tree in the first photo. I will cut out most of the middle one once its done fruiting as it has a lot there. Like you say I guess I will try to cut out those branches that can cause problems (i.e. spindly, inward/downward/perpendicular). I guess I will have to cut down a lot of thicker wood on the right side (in the first photo) in order to stimulate the otherside to start growing vigorously as its balance is really skewed at the moment. The birds eye view is decidedly not a ‘Pinwheel’ unfortunately!
I just need to get over the mental hurdle that you mention associated with hacking a tree to bits (or is cutting down to size a more accurate term here?). But I’ve also never fertilized this tree and was hoping to do so this year to try to push growth on the smaller side. Any thoughts as to this approach? I guess I’d be looking at something with high N, I just bought a bag of 10-10-10 for various uses so I could add some but I suspect I’d need some (urea?) N to make it grow like gangbusters and hopefully build some stronger and more balanced scaffolds.
18"+ sounds like a good height to start training the new branches, my riding mower broke last fall and I just repaired it two weeks ago. Grass grows 4-5ft by June in this pasture no problem if you let it so those low branches would just spell trouble.
IMO, the tree shape looks good and already open with sufficient light penetration where the lower branches are actively growing. Personally I wouldn’t cut much at all, more you cut fruiting will be delayed or tree will fail to fruit next season because of losing energy producing leaves. You can leave the tree as-is with some light pruning (dead, diseased, water shoots etc.) fertilize well and see how it’s doing in two years, if the tree is not growing shoots in the lower part due to shade, you can do some corrective pruning.
We have had no rain in the past couple of weeks, and my June Pride has started ripening. It is an excellent peach! I agree it has more flavor than some of the low acid nectarines that I like. It is probably in my top 10 stone fruit varieties, together with Arctic Star, Flavor King, Flavor Supreme and Honey Series nectarines.
Mericrest is loaded, on the verge of ripening, and first thing in the morning I go out to check for that varmint-attracting scent. I’v picked some underripe fruit already, just to get the jump on them. The whole kitchen smells like nectarine, but it remains to be seen if the fruit will really ripen to the optimal edible point.
We had a good rain almost two weeks ago, but it has been relatively dry and sunny since the beginning of July so brix are high on everything ripening now. In the humid regions you always need to weigh in the relative season- peaches and nectarines are so much better when there is mostly sun in the 2-3 weeks leading up to harvest as opposed to those ripening in mostly cool, wet, grey sky weather, or even warm, grey sky weather.
My sister has a Satsuma plum tree north of Eureka CA where there are many foggy days during summer. Those plums usually don’t get very sweet.
So while I was hovering over the Mericrest, behind my back the Independence, which has always ripened later, started dropping, dead ripe. I am inundated!
