Very well said Olpea. Fruit experts are in short supply in Kansas. I talked with one self proclaimed expert and he prescribed chainsaw pruning to the ground any tree with any pest or disease. From his perspective sprays are preventitives only but never a cure. He cut me off when i explained captan or immunox and sanitary practices cure blackrot.
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That Ortho product is my favorite, too. Now I’m also using imidicloprid, but I get the sprayable kind, not the soil drench, because I can use a lot less of it.
I wait to spray until the PCs bite, lol. I still have one small bottle of the Ortho left, and that’s what I’ve sprayed once this year.
I read somewhere that Seven liquid/ Carbaryl is effective against PC. Has anyone try it out and with good results?
That is one of the active ingredients in Bonide fruit tree spray. Another active ingredient is malathion
Got to be careful with liquid sevin at petal fall or shortly after on apples because it acts as a fruit thinner.
I just thinned my apple trees with a rate of sevin that the experts suggest is too low to kill PC but high enough to thin the fruit (1 pint/acre)
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Sprayable imidicloprid?
What used to be Bayer (now BioAdvanced) Citrus, Fruit and Vegetable Insect Control is the drench kind, and not labeled against PC, moth or maggot fly?
What brand/formulation of imidicloprid is labeled for spray application?
I still have piles of Pomona magazines on my book shelf, although I haven’t looked at them in years. I really should recycle them.
Anyone willing to pay for shipping can have them.
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Dominion 2L
I have the same product. My understanding is that the plant tissues on the fruits part do not carry enough dose of the pesticides to control PC and other insects that damage fruits
Pesticides become weaker with each generation and random people not using full doses and proper timing and application just builds pesticide immune insects like nobodies business.
We do not understand how to use pesticides properly in america.
We are wonderous at making superbugs and removing predatory insects
And yet agriculture is one industry in which we out perform other countries and easily compete in global markets. We also spend a smaller percentage of our income on food than citizens of any other nation, which actually was much of the basis of the rise of American power that has provided Americans in general with a relatively luxurious lifestyle (along with other perks, like having the industrial mite to defeat Hitler).
We began relying heavily on synthetic agricultural chemicals with nitrogen vastly increasing productivity along with synthetic pesticides almost a century ago. These things along with innovations in farm machinery drastically raised productivity and helped create a vibrant middle class in this country as small farms evaporated and mechanization reduced the need for human hands. Many of those hands wound up in factories assuming union jobs that provided much higher wages than those possible laboring in fields.
I’m not saying there are no environmental problems with modern agriculture, but the majority of us have benefitted from the huge increase in per-acre productivity that has occurred in the last century.
IPM strategies are very conscious of beneficial insects and aim to create a sustainable model for modern agriculture. The materials used in todays farms are far less environmentally destructive than just 2 decades ago.
IMO what is the great threat to our species is our crazy explosion in human population. The gains in productivity world wide have been used to nurture more and more people with no consideration of options that might make our lives better by stabilizing our numbers and our negative environmental impact and instead using technology to make the lives of a smaller population better.
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