I’ve been looking daily but so far no curc marks. I usually wait for the plum shucks to fall so I don’t just spray the cots. I will probably spray the cots this weekend even if I don’t see any curc marks before then and even if the plums are still in shuck. I will hit everything that has petals dropped.
2 Likes
I see some curc marks in SW VA already. Pears bloomed about 2 weeks ago.
1 Like
Well I posted an hour too soon… I just found curc marks. Time to spray.
3 Likes
@sockworth and @scottfsmith could you post a picture of the marks so I know what I’m looking for? I remember being told they look like a “C” but for whatever reason I’m having trouble finding a picture.
It would look like a tiny crescent mark. It would be hard to miss against the green backdrop of fruit. I notice it appears close to the stem of the growing fruitlet.
Here’s an image I found online.
2 Likes
Oh nice! thank you. Do you already have fruitlets on your trees?
I keep checking mine to see if there are any, I think I’d get peach first (I have no apricot or plum). I don’t know if all mine were frozen off or if they are going to develop soon or if the trees have another problem I need to think about…
It seems I’m generally a week or two behind most of the people posting in this thread - so then I seem to know what to look out for!
I’m using fruitlet perhaps in a loose way. What I mean is they’re big enough to get bitten by the curc.
I had peach fruitlets on a saturn peach last week. I pinched them off since the tree is still small, but it would have been hit by now with curc had I not pinched. I also see pear fruitlets.
1 Like
Along with the C marks there are feeding marks which are maybe .5mm diameter circles, often indented a bit as a chunk was bitten out. I found one apricot with three crescents and another with one feeding bite.
Usually for stone fruits you wait until the shuck falls off (the flower remnant), that usually keeps the curc off as they prefer to bite on the end of the fruit. But the feeding bite was on a small fruit that still had a shuck on … never saw that before.
I ended up putting two coats on all my J plums and cots. I couldn’t spray the peaches yet as they still had flowers, and so I needed less spray than I had loaded into the sprayer. The advantage with the double coat is the apricots and plums are glowing white now 
In general at the start of the season a double coat is a good idea, for me the first coat is dry when I have finished covering all the trees so I can just start from the beginning right then.
5 Likes
It looks like a couple poms will push some buds… maybe a fourth of the buds are coming out. That is a lot better than dying all to the ground like most of them did.
The figs seem similar, but all seem to have a few small low shoots that survived as opposed to the poms where most died all the way back. Very few of the full height fig shoots are budding, nearly all of those look dead or only have buds much lower.
I am done with poms except for one Salavatski that is budding now. It has been my most reliable one overall. I had put a plum in the middle of the main stand a few years ago and it is now going to take over as the whole stand died to the ground. My Nikitski Ranni is the one other one that had live buds but I gave that one to a friend.
3 Likes
I thought only 2 of my poms went down, but it looks like all of them might be out for the count. Mine were on their own roots so maybe some will come back. Figs are also looking pretty drunk, but I’m not much worried about them they always come back. Fuzzy kiwi also dead.
Think I’m out of the pom game as well. Maybe fuzzy kiwi too. Have you tried zone pushing any of the cold hardy guava?
None of my outdoor figs have come to life yet but have passed the scratch test.
Poms and figs always come back from the roots. The problem with poms is they take five years before they will be fruiting again after dieback… so in twenty years I have had maybe five where poms were fruiting. Figs get back in the game much faster after dieback.
I am surprised your kiwi died, I have never lost a fuzzy kiwi. Sometimes the spring frost will zap the shoots but they will grow back from dormant buds.
@Orange120OD figs wood being green now doesn’t mean they will come back, the wood can be ok but all the buds can be dead. Poms also do this. You can check individual buds to see if any have green in them.
Hi N. Mid-Atlantic! What’s blooming right now? I have apples still blooming - they seem to bloom over a longer period of time than the pears did. Pears done. Still wondering if any of my peaches actually have fruit on them. The one that did have fruit last year had many frozen flowers this year. The others are in quite bad shape and quite old (12-16 years ish) so who knows if they will do anything.
Yesterday, I was out and about and saw this:
Is it cherry?
Yes a Cherry. Branch pattern, flower/stalk, and leaf, and bud cover are fairly distinct on Cherry.
1 Like
BTW, there may be some wild cherries growing in VA. It difficult to distinguish from cultivated cherries in your picture But perhaps the wild vs pruned shape of the tree might give it away. The fruit can also give it away.
I’m through peaches and nectarines. My chestnut crab is at the end of it’s bloom. Honeycrisp is mid, granny smith is just getting going. Both my sour and sweet cherries are mid way through.
1 Like
It was at the edge of a neglected pasture at my friend’s house down the road from me! Not clear if it was put there deliberately or not. There are a couple trees like this one along the pasture edge. I will take some more pictures and a closer look to see if I can determine if it was pruned ever.
And I’ll have to keep an eye on it to see if it produces any fruit. I understand cherries are quite difficult in this area.
I’m familiar with wild cherry Prunus pensylvanica - Wikipedia which has some range in Virginia.
The large bud covering shown in your picture makes me think it’s more of a cultivated cherry variety.
I think folks say growing cherries in East coast is not worth it because it’s too much of a hassle vs reward. But the wild types trees seem to grow just fine.