I fully understand that most people here arent commercial orchardists, im not either. But my response was to mrtexas where he said that growing fruit in the northeast requires lots of spraying, and thats just not true. My post was to point out that spraying isnt always necessary, as other types of pest control can be utilized where it fits a persons operation, be it 1 tree or 1 million trees.
Go back and read his post about needing weekly spraying and then reread mine.
Agree with my post or not, but my intent wasnt to blow my own horn, it was ment to point out that weekly spraying isnt necessary in every location,in the northeast,like mrtexas said.
I was going to spray for aphids and mites, but held off. In a few days the spiders, lady beetles, wasps, and earwigs took them all out. That may not be the case for every location, but predator species can be of great benefit.
There are traps that can indicate when to spray as well.
@alan,
Pests alone forvapples, I have the usual suspects from leaf rollers to plum curculio, Oriental fruit moths, all kinds of catfacing bugs like Tarnished plant bugs, stinkbugs, apple maggot flies, etc.
They donât show up at the same time. In the past, I did two sprays of Triazicide and Immunox a year but that did not work. Lot of PC and CM damage. Could be that my timing was off or Triazicide was old.
Thatâs when I switched to bagging and get so used to it. Once bagging is done, no more work on apples for the rest of the season.
I have bad aphids infestation on sweet cherry. Lady beetles are there, in number - main reason I did not spray. But their larva just sits on clean old leaves, while aphids multiply on new shootsâŚ