And squirrels, deer, voles, birds…it’s a wonder that my ancestors in the Shenandoah Valley didn’t all starve without having the chemical controls we have.
Not yet… it has been so cold recently that I am not looking much. In the next warm spell I expect they will come out.
The great whitening of my trees and bushes has begun. With temps staying warmer for the next few nights I didn’t want to wait any longer so I sprayed my surround on my romance cherries and peaches as the primary target, plus my single apricot still hanging on. Then I also made a quick round on my apples and pears. I put some spinosad in the tank, plus a little liquie castile soap as well as a couple eggs blended up with some water to hopefully repel the deer from browsing. Hopefully none of that conflicts.
I did 3 cups per gallon of water for the first tank, then went to 4 cups per gallon for the next one since it always seems hard to get much to stick with the first spray.
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Your timing is perfect. I have a lot of trees so have been working up to it but everything covered as of yesterday. Tonight the curc will be out in force… she goes 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye.
I really should do one more coat on a few things for insurance, plus a few things that just dropped petals I’m going to patrol here in a few minutes to see if I need to get my headlamp on for a round of spraying.
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I read on the Penn State Extension that PC control coincides with apple petal fall. Has anyone ever noticed this?
Article states, “The timing of an insecticide application after the petal fall stage on apples is almost always perfectly synchronized with the optimal period for the control of European apple sawfly (EAS), rosy apple aphid (RAA), Oriental fruit moth (OFM), and plum curculio (PC).”
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Yes, as soon as the petals fall and you have a warm night the curc will be on your apples.
They are out, here is one I found in my orchard tonight on an asian pear. Crushed about 5 seconds after this picture was taken.
My coverage generally looks good but it could use some spot spraying. I’m tired so the curc will get a few fruits tonight.
Wow, sorry to see that curc on a fruit with what seems like a pretty good surround coverage to me. Do you usually target fuller coverage than that on the fruit?
Thanks Scott @scottfsmith. I’m really trying to stay ahead of these this year. My plums that I’m worried about are still extremely tiny ( not even 1/8th of inch). The petals fell this past week(Purple Heart).
Tonight is our first really warm night. Luckily I got two coats of surround on my trees yesterday. Potential rain wednesday and Thursday though.
That was a bit on the light side; I do target the clusters.
The curcs are all out there on our fruit right now, all we are doing is slowing them down. Hopefully slow enough so we can just thin away the damage!
I better get busy tomorrow with Surround! Except only about half the petals have fallen.
I walked around this morning and saw a few hits on cherries I missed with the spray, but overall looks good. I did see one curc out on the edge of a pear leaf which I promptly squished. I was surprised to see it since the tree had pretty good coverage, but maybe it was already on the tree when I sprayed and just got stranded out on the leaf since it didn’t want to walk over the surround.
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I’ve switched my spray cocktail to Actara this year,
and I’ve not had the first strike on any tree in my
orchard. It’s expensive, but it works.
Although nothing really needs it,
I’m doing a second spray this morning just because I always do 2 sprays.
Here is some info from a different PC topic thread regarding the use of Tanglefoot:
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When spraying for PC will a contact poison kill them or do they need to ingest it?
It depends on what you spray. Some kill by contact, some by ingestion. Surround spray does neither. Its fine flakes irritate PC and discourage them from staying and causing damage.
I’m referring to the PC themselves. If sprayed with a contact poison will they absorb it and die? For example, adult squash bugs won’t absorb a poison. It makes them difficult to kill.
Ithey can be killed by contact and by ingesting poison.
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That is a great article. Thanks.
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I saw one today, too. But, I wasn’t quick enough - and he got away.