Have folks started their copper spray yet this season? I am in zone 7a and did a dormant oil two weeks ago, but assumed I should be spraying copper for the first time here soon?
I do copper with oil at delayed dormant - just before buds pop. The closer to bud break the more effective the spray is.
This year my diseases are not bad so only lime-sulfur plus oil at delayed dormant, no copper.
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Is there anyone in the greater Philadelphia area know of local farmers markets or who personally grow “special” apples for sale? For example, sweet 16 apples, anything red fleshed, etc?
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Forecast last night was a low of 32. moved my potted plants into the garage but thought everything else in ground would be fine. temp got a lot lower than I expected. it was below freezing between 4:30am and 8am and bottomed out at 27 degrees. did a walk around the property and almost everything seemed ok, but my Miss Kim persimmon isn’t looking too happy.
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I feel this. In Montgomery county it was only supposed to get to 30 but my backyard thermometer read 20 at 7am! I had moved containers and bagged the smaller flowering berry bushes (which worked!), but worried about the bigger things.
I also got some damage, mainly the kiwi shoots mostly fried. It was 28F but for five hours it was below freezing, that’s a very long time. Usually it is warmer until just before sunrise.
Until this year, I’ve really just sprayed surround and some spinosad, but the rust on my Asian pears has just gotten worse and worse each year. I have some Immunox to try and am wondering what the right time to spray it is. Petals are starting to fall on the pears, so is that already the time? Wait until all petals are down or if I wait they’ll already have rust setting in?
I have had good luck any time around petal fall. The main reason why I still get a bit is its places I can see I missed with the sprayer.
… @Bigmike1116 I noticed this morning that my Smith’s Best persimmon got nailed, it pushed growth earlier than the other varieties and it’s all dead now. Also it looks like I won’t be getting apricots this year, they all look bad now. I can’t recall ever having 28F doing such extreme damage. I hope the peaches and plums are OK.
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Of surprise to me, my 3 year old wild pawpaw lost 80% of its young shoots/leaves. It was leafing out early this year for some reason but I wasn’t expecting a native plant to get hit quite so hard. The peach 10’ away, halfway into petal drop, faired much better. Unfortunately I don’t have a temperature sensor out there but a nearby weather station claimed it only got to 30° for 1 hour
Seeing a bit more damage hear and there, including some leaves on my Girardi mulberry shoots. It is always pretty early and sometimes gets some damage, but usually has enough fruit still coming that the few that I see emerging that look like they might have been hit won’t be missed.
My apricots on the other hand just didn’t look as nice as I thought they should (round firm, almost glossy) yesterday and cutting some open today I’m seeing a bit of brown around every seed in fruit I cut open. I’ll have to check in a day or so, but maybe mine are lost as well.
I really think it was the amount of time it stayed below freezing that did the most damage, rather than the fact that it reached 28ish for me. As I mentioned in the weather thread, it was cold enough for long enough that my bird bath, with about 1.5 inches of water in it, froze completely solid.
Thanks.
Could I put surround and spinosad in the same tank with the Immunox, or should I apply it separately. Not a rush with the surround at this point I guess based on upcoming nighttime temps.
Every tank I spray except for the dormant spray has Surround in it. The default is mix it, only in a very few special cases should you not mix.
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Quick question since surround came up- do you recommend spray new trees that aren’t fruiting, or that’s senseless/a waste? Curculio and other insects won’t come until there’s fruit?
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You don’t need to spray them with surround but I sometimes hit them because my tank has other things in it. For example myclobutanil.
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Riamede farms has some decent selection, but nothing that is super far out there. It is also expensive.
Most u-picks seem to cater to the average consumers unfortunately. I can’t find many around jersey with unique ones.
I did get to try a few from the tomato tasting at rutgers, as they also had some pristine for tasting. Because of the drought this year, those things were amazing.
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Well some of the currants and jostaberry I planted last weekend that had a good bit of green growth new growth got a little zapped by the freeze along with a red nanking.
Everything is still alive, just a bunch of the new growth is probably dead, booo. All the stuff I planted last year and had new growth is completely fine tho. It also looks like the Crandall I planted handled the freeze pretty well too.
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Has anyone in this group had any luck with pineapple guava in the ground? If so were they seedlings or distinct cultivars?
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I had some bushes many years ago. Without good protection all the leaves dropped and that means they will never fruit. You also can’t protect them like figs because it will be all dark under the cover and the leaves will drop due to lack of light. Maybe a clear insulated cover might work, but I never tried it. Basically a greenhouse or similar appears to be required.
Well shoot. That matches with what I’ve seen so far of mine. Two are seedlings, one named. They hold well through the winter but the late February temperatures zap the leaves. I really need to get/build myself a greenhouse one of these days.
