"Bordeaux Mixture—Prof. Pierce’s Formula.
Remedy for Leaf Curl—A Fertilizer and Invigorator of the Tree.
5 lbs. copper sulphate ( blue stone.
)
5 lbs. quick lime.
45 gallons water.
Dissolve the copper sulphate, (blue stone), in a barrel contain-
ing ten or twelve gallons of water. Slack the quick lime and
thin it to a creamy whitewash. Pour the whitewash very slowly
through a wire screen into the copper solution. Stir the mix-
ture thoroughly and add enough water to make 45 gallons in ail.
Stir occasionally while applying as a spray to the trees.
In the preparation of the Bordeaux Mixture it is necessary
that the ingredients should be mixed in a wooden vessel. If an
iron vat is used the copper will go to the iron and the effect of
the spray is largely neutralized. Apply the remedy cold and as
soon after it is prepared as possible.
Here are all the bulletins since 1888… better than google if u ask me.
The old timers took the time to really write things out for the common man.
The farm i talked about is near me. It has an old tavern/lodge on the property and some history that says Daniel Boone stayed there.
Lots of apple and peach trees i think some pears. All planted on a slope deep in a holler up in the hills. On a good day a person could hike to where @Hillbillyhort lives and grows things. Very similar farm to his.
My friends dad bought the property and i spent alot of time there.
No spray…no care…nothing. Just fruit on trees that we ate. I do remember all the worms and blemishes but as a kid in the 70s it didnt matter.
So yes likely all the trees there were planted from seed.
They must be different names for the same apple. Pictures online are poor, but its a distinctive apple and hard to mistake. It starts off greenish yellow and tart and within a day or two becomes whitish yellow and translucent looking (you might even say transparent). Its wide and flat like a mac. Ive found a bunch of seedlings in wayward places that were identical, so it’s probably more of a landrace than a true variety. It seems to have been appreciated anywhere that self-sufficiency was essential. Hard scrabble farmers here after the sheep boom and western exodus would have counted on these transparent apples for sauce and apple butter- they make a sauce almost without cooking at the right stage of ripeness. It is good for tarts, baking, etc. a couple of days before that.
Thanks! Ill check them out. I like old ag bulletins and such. We may know a lot today, and information is obviously SO available now, but theres stuff buried in these old sources that is kind of lost to us. I have a shelf full of USDA “yearbook of agriculture” editions from the 20’s - 50’s on my shelf. I forget the year, but one of them is titled “Grass”, and has an article about planting kudzu for forage. Reading it leaves quite an impression. They tend to gloss over it being planted at all really, but this article gives numbers showing just how intensively it actually was being planted. Like literally acreage of it on ~ 1 or 2 ft centers. The article describes thousands of acres being planted this way in a short time. And they wonder why it “ate the south.”
I believe that’s a big part of my issue with the majority of modern chemicals. I spend a lot of time researching the meaning of words to gain a level of understanding. Whereas, it would be most helpful if they would just explain in common understandable english to begin with.
Not everyone has a PHD in chemistry. If you are marketing a product to the general population, common sense would tell you… explain the product in a way that’s understandable to the population you’re marketing too.
I really fear for the folks that post on the social media groups that just bought trees and dont really even know the name of the cultivar and ask as soon as their phone can take the first picture of them buying the tree.
What do i spray and when?
How many times have u seen the folks that spray the fruit? I have alot…they think that they spray the chemicals on the fruit to keep the bugs and disease away.
Its obvious that they dont even take the time to search…as that same exact question is asked literally 20 times a day for months and months.
There is No way that even a fraction of them even read the directions.
I think at the minimum there should be some kind of surgeons general warning or something for folks.
I used every chemical my dad bought on our gardens, bare handed and often bare footed. I loved that chore.
Back in those days you just asked the person at the hardware what is the strongest poison u got… and they sold it to you.
I just pulled a squishy early ripened pear off a no spray tree. Was it blemish free? Nope. Was it delicious? Yes, It was absolutely delicious Can’t wait for them to ripen to can pear sauce for eating. For me, there’s no such thing as perfect in earth, as a matter of fact I get suspicious when something appears to be to good to be true. Give me blemished ugly fruit and I’ll be content and happily eat it.
Back on topic though… I would venture to say no spray peaches are not possible in Southern IL. But on the flip side perhaps “mostly” organic compound sprayed peach trees are possible, that’s my pursuit. I’m not after perfection or even marketability. I just enjoy the whole process and eating and sharing the fruits isn’t that what pocket knives are for? To cut out bad spots
Brown rot has been a big problem for me. I started out not wanting to spray. Last year all my Carmine Jewel cherries and most of my plums where lost to it. This year so far I don’t see any brown rot. Looking are my records I sprayed fungicides 5 times so far.
Starting in March I sprayed copper, then Cholorthalonil, then Indar & Luna Sensation, then Captan and Luna Sensation then July 7th Captan. Will probably spray again in August with Captan or sulfur on apples (for Marssonina), pears and nectarines.
Fungus thrives in humidity and warm nights to go with warm days. Anyone who has ever spent a few weeks in the coastal south during summer can tell you about humidity. All up and down the east coast people have traditionally flocked to the more inland hills for relief from that humidity, although the beaches lower temps and consistent breezes also can bring relief- but the coastal plains can be suffocating.
I like history also, but old info isn’t always good info. Of course, same can be said of new info, but as a whole, we do make progress in understanding how things work.
The main problem with peaches high in the hills is the danger of untimely frost. It’s easier to protect them from fungus than that.
This has been an excellent read so thank you. I really want to grow fruit trees but my career path makes it so I can be called away from home for days to weeks due to weather events (electric utility). So trying any sort of spray program will probably fail at some point for me (I can already tell my wife wouldn’t want to spray either) That leads me to this question could no spray be done on fruit grown in high tunnels with some sort fine netting to exclude the bugs? I found some articles on I believe university of Iowa and some other farms testing so it’s in its infancy. From what I gather most fungal/bacterial issues are abated but there still can be pest issues. Just wondering what people with years of fruit growing experience think. I understand you need to get right varieties/ rootstocks and there would be high upfront costs. Thank you!
Buying and installing tunnels is a lot of time and money. If you have the land just buy a couple peach trees and throw them out there. Spray when you can and accept that some years you may not get any. Couple peach trees are not that much money and they give you a nice display of flowers.
Not really. Paris Green is arsenic, 100% organic and 100% deadly. It’s also a lot of work to hit the trees every day. That method can work, though. Before arsenic and lead came along that was about all they could do. And they suffered, a lot. There are many books reporting on individual orchards, several state ag organizations issued annual reports. Lots of complete crop losses due to pests.
Re: how much spray you need to do, there is really only one month a year when sprays are critical, it is May for me. If I only sprayed in May I would get a good crop. So if you can be around more in May (or whatever the window is from petal fall to nickel sized fruits) you may be able to grow peaches.
actually @alan, that statement is a bit surprising to me since some of the oldest and most established orchards here were planted on hill tops. I remember listening to a long format interview with a well known local orchardist who just passed away in his early 90’s. He was recounting his boss’s (he was just a hired hand at the time) comments regarding the then new orchard begun nearby by Senator George Aiken and well known USDA head and fruit breeder George Darrow. His comment was something to the effect that he would have purchased that parcel himself and planted apples on it if only it had been a few hundred ft higher.
Im sure it depends a lot on the terrain and what elevation of high ground actually is. Around here, those hilltop orchards are probably at about 1400 ft, with the valley below at about 300. I imagine the winters are harsher up there, the summers are cooler, but in the shoulder seasons, they’re apt to be the least prone to frost. Or at least that was the prevailing wisdom.
If air is mixed like in a cold front, then I believe the higher elevation would always be lower temp, given everything else equal. 1000ft is worth 3-5F, or something like a minor hardiness zone.
When air is still, the cold air stratifies, sinks, and collects to lowest spot of land. This typically decreases the morning lows compared to higher elevations.
I think on a small hill or hillside is ideal to avoid morning lows since it’s much more common than a cold front event.
Im digging around in my copy of Rudolf Geiger’s “The Weather Near the Ground” to see what he has to say. Lots, it turns out, but nothing apropos at the moment. that I could find.
Im an observer of these things with an open mind and willingness to learn. The rule of thumb you are referencing states something to the effect that an 1000 ft elevation gain will beget a temperature decrease of N degrees. I believe that nighttime temperatures function differently though.
My site is about 3/4 the way up the hill (~900 ft.) overlooking two river valleys. In my experience, the air is never still here during late or early frosts. The sky is invariably clear then. Warm air carrying heat from the valley flows up the hill while cool air flows downslope, displacing it. This happens laminarly, so there is separation of the two layers, and also a degree of turbulence. This is the process by which inversions are generated. I dont think that an inversion layer is always present at these times, and even if so, its height is apt to vary. Its surely very site dependent too, I think, since its only going to occur in proximity to a substantial valley or other heat source (urban heat island, large body of water). In my observation, an inversion can easily give 5-6 degrees F margin. Ive always figured a bit below the top of the hill facing southeast is probably pretty optimal for catching inversions while still having decent heat units and moderation of winter cold and wind. It just happens that describes my site well. Perhaps that bias on my part though. Its a perennial interest of mine- observing and attempting to understand these phenomena- so Im glad to entertain other’s take on such things.
Are you referring to Plum Curculio or brown rot? Would one spray of Indar work for brown rot? In 2021 I started spraying with Captan in May and then 3 Captan sprays in June and one in July. Still had brown rot so that didn’t work. In 2022 I did similar except I also used Indar in early July. That worked.
I find it very interesting too. I think you’re describing there’s mountain and valley breezes, this could happen everyday when the sun is out.
The nighttime temperatures are affected by elevation as well since it’s due to always present temp/pressure relationships, but local temp inversion can easily overtake it, hence someone at lower elevation can have much colder temp than someone at higher. The 3-5F per 1k ft is said to be dependent on cloud cover, so the clearer the sky, the more it leans to 5F. In the winter time when it’s more cloudy, it’s going to be more like 3F per 1k ft.
In my region the most consistent commercial growers of peaches are on Long Island with its strong moderation of temps. Upstate it is near the shores of Lake Ontario where the mot frost delicate fruit can be grown.
By high in the hills I was referring to the quote
but being raised in the west nothing on the east coast seems like mountains so I deliberately used the word hills, but I mean the tallest hills here, which I assume the writer wad referring to, that do have more extreme temp swings than other areas.
Prime orchard land is often on hills for both water and cold air drainage. As was mentioned, it all depends on the type of cold- on still nights being on a hill you get protection but this year it was a disadvantage as far as the bad affects of our coldest night of winter.
People near me with better sites often have no peaches this year, because it was breezy that night and air drainage didn’t help. Apparently their better location left their trees more vulnerable to cold because they weren’t as hardened off as the trees at my slightly colder spot.
Crop or no crop can be based on razor thin variance. All the trees bloomed but at some sites all the ovules were dead, at mine only the buds most exposed that would have been my best peaches and nects were frozen and there’s mostly good crops lower in the trees. I keep summer pruning them to give the leaves near them exposed to some sun. and help dry dew from the peaches quickly. I’m near the base of a hollow so dew is heavy and protected somewhat from breezes.
Around here, he lead arsenate has left a lot of old apple orchard land unsuitable for residential development, vastly decreasing its value. Inheriting a farm in developing areas may not be the gift one would think, especially when the water source is a contaminated well, but just having a lot of lead in the soil is a threat to health. It stays for centuries.
My two cents real quick. I would say growing no spray peaches on the east coast would not work. However, @scottfsmith low impact spray schedule has given me more peaches than we can eat for 7 years now. My revised plan is completely organic. I did four sprays this year with Surround, Spinosad, bt, cease, and alternating between oil and sulphur. Little to no brown rot, limited OFM damage, no curc damage for whatever reason.
Can’t wait for them to ripen to can pear sauce for eating. For me, there’s no such thing as perfect in earth, as a matter of fact I get suspicious when something appears to be to good to be true. Give me blemished ugly fruit and I’ll be content and happily eat it.
