I am beginning to see some plums turning yellow that got bit before I had the chance to spray. I lightly tugged on them and they fell off with ease. Inside were brown trails leading to the seed and half eaten seeds. The larvae were very small and hard to see. I also found a nickel sized peach on the ground with a larva inside. Be sure to pick up these damaged fruit and discard them in the trash so they don’t spawn more headaches next year!
This is my first year with enough stone fruit set that this pest is a problem. My Asian pears that have bite marks had no trails going inside when I dissected them. It looks like what we know about PC failing to develop in pears holds true.
My bad, only one generation of PC here but I do have OFM all the way to late Sept judging from fresh flagging shoots by then. Although later generations of OFM may not do as much damage to fruit as the first wave, they can still cause some damage on unprotected fruit.
I also have had PC’s neck bites on larger-sized Euro plums like @scottfsmith described up thread, too.
What did use as a spreader/sticker? A good one like Nu-film most definitely makes it harder to get anything to stick once it’s set. It’s basically a polymer film that adheres to the leaf and sheds water.
Well it looks like I have to moderate that… the colder weather looks like it was a big factor and in the current warm spell I am seeing more growing worms in the fruits. They just “idled” in the cool period.
Overall I am still getting much less curc damage than usual, and I plan to continue with the Grandevo in future years as a supplement to the Surround.
A few years ago I found a plum curculio on my tree. I thought it was a nice elephant (looking) bug, and treated it kindly. For years every plum has dropped from this tree, and I have noticed small marks on the baby plums. However, this year I may actually have some plums to harvest. Plum curculio marks have been seen on the fruits that I was unable to bag.
Thanks! I hope so as well. It would be nice to finally see how these plums are. I do not even know what their ripe color is after more than 10 years. If this works, next year I will try the full sleeves so that I can cover more.
If it just might make you feel better, it took my Italian Prune Plum 7 years before it fruited, and then I could still count the fruits. After that, I always netted the entire tree and and had huge amounts of plums on it.
Yeah, the bags appear to be working thus far. The tree has fruited a lot over the years, but it always fall off when they are 1/4" or less. Mostly all would have that small v cut in them. However I never paid it much mind. I thought the tree wasn’t being pollinated, but then why would a few grow larger with no other plums around? In the past there was one or two that would reach the size they currently are ( 1/2 - 3/4 inch ) before they also would drop. Now there are about 50 that size. My Italian prune plum has 1 plum. I thought they all fell off so it was a pleasant surprise. I bagged that also.
I found hits on some satsuma that i know i sprayed, but it has been wet here and washed off the pesticide. I broke out the razor blade. The hits were right at the ends with one right near the stem. Just sliced in i hope deep enough to get the egg. I did it on Lavina plums years back and it worked perfect.
Deer chewed off all the leaves on my Korean Giant and Harrow Delight scions . . . and they were doing so wonderfully. Damn Deer. We hadn’t gotten to that particular pear, yet . . . with our chicken wire cages. Everything we enclosed seems to have worked . . . and the deer quit chewing on the caged trees. I hope this continues to keep them off.
Has anyone tried those solar lights that come on when they sense motion? We have some really bright ones - and I wonder if that would startle the deer when they approach - and keep them away from the trees? Probably not . . . since it’s way too easy!
Goldrush has indeed suffered a lot less insect damage than nearby trees. I hadn’t noticed that before, thanks for pointing it out. Enterprise has also been consistently resistant to insect and blight damage, and also sets well every year. I think it’s quite good as a storage apple. How do you rank Belle de Boskop, Sundance, and Hauer Pippin for flavor?
Boskoop is a star for taste- intense sweet and tart, crunchy. Hauer is milder, develops taste in storage. Have not eaten Sundance yet, just going on a lot of research so far.
PC is very bad here. Think all the cold mixed with the quick hot spells plus lots of rain when i was going to spray. I’ve had higher then normal pc hits and that is saying a lot. Some apples have a dozen+ marks on them from pc. I killed 5 (live) PC in one tree over the weekend. They just sit on apples during the day.
Damn Deer. We hadn’t gotten to that particular pear, yet . . . with our chicken wire cages. Everything we enclosed seems to have worked . . . and the deer quit chewing on the caged trees. I hope this continues to keep them off.