I collected the thinings in two different containers so I could compare the amount of plum curculio damage to undamaged fruit, and to separate the compostable fruit from that going to the trash.
I’d never thought about making plum pickles. Now I’ve got to look that up!
@Auburn I waited longer than was probably ideal to spray, because I was trying to avoid pollinators by waiting for some of the lagging blooms to finish up. There wasn’t much of a wait though because they all bloomed at about the same time.
You are what you eat and all those PC larva have ever eaten is plum so I would use them too. pricking the plums will infuse them faster serves them right.
I live in MS and after all the tornados yesterday I expected to wake up to most of my bagged fruit on the ground. I unfortunately woke up to my Spice Zee on the ground I think I’m just gonna go back to all berries.
The first pic is how straight I could get it to stand back up without support, second pic is with the tree bungie tied to a stake. Taking bets on the tree’s survival rate
I’m in Mississippi also, your tree will be fine because you re positioned it quickly. My four Spicezee’s are all fine. We did have a tornado pass us within a half mile yesterday, but no damage. It might be helpful in future to prune your trees to a more open center, allowing air to past thru in high wind events. Most years I have to open my trees up during hurricane season. In 2011 I lost a lot trees being broken off at the graft union during a hurricane.
This is shaping up to be a pretty unusual year for me for curculio… most of the apricots have dropped shucks but I have yet to find a single crescent. I do see feeding bites so they are out there but it looks like it has been too cool for them to lay eggs. I haven’t done a single post bloom spray yet as it has been raining a lot and cool/cold. Usually by this point of apricot development I have done my second Surround spray.
I was much more diligent in the last year on cleaning up drops, so I hope I will have a smaller population this year, but every year I think that I eventually get a mess of crescents at some point. I am sure they are out there and I am sure they will eventually be doing their nasty thing.
@scottfsmith I am almost exactly in the same spot as you Scott. I considered spraying last evening after the storm was over, but the trees were wet and it was somewhat breezy. I then checked the weather forecast, and until Sat the highs will be in low fifties and lows will be in the thirties, not the kind of weather conducive of insect activity, hence I decided to wait till Sun and reconsider spraying then. I also inspected my cots today and did not see signs of curculio assault (bird pecking, yes ).
By the way, how is your apricot fruit set after all the rain that we got during bloom? My apparent excellent fruit set turned out to be poor as I lost many small fruitlets to blossom blight…
It looks like the earlier bloomers may have set better, Tomcot is the earliest and it has a massive set – I am already thinning it. I got a bit of blossom blight but hardly any; I had put down a rot preventative at pink on the cots and maybe that helped. The later blooming cots look more like “pre-thinned” in terms of the set, there are plenty of cots but at post-thinning levels.
I am also going to wait awhile before spraying, it is so cold that I don’t think the curc will do anything. I am going to keep checking things out to be sure though… I hope my peach grafts don’t stall in the long cold spell, they were just starting to get going.
I’m pretty sure I had some strikes on my cherries last week. I had already sprayed my plums, peaches, and apples.
I envy your apricots. I lost all but 1 apricot and every single pluot (again). I wonder if I did more damage trying to save them from the frost, or if it was just lack of polination.
My Tomcot is pre-thinned, but about half the branches that were covered by small fruitlets are now bare. My Blenheim has good fruit density all over, but my Orangered graft, which is 4-5’ long and covered by spurs, has lost everything except a couple of fruitlets. Finally, my Flavor Delight tree lost 95% of its fruit load. Going forward, I will do a Chlorothalonyl spray during bloom if it rains.
I haven’t gotten to spraying my surround either. I’m in Arlington, VA - between @scottfsmith and @TheGrog and just walked around the yard examining cherries and peaches that are just starting the shuck the blooms. I didn’t see any curc issues yet, but I know I’m pushing it. It’s going to rain again tonight, so maybe tomorrow after work I’ll try to get the surround on them. There is nothing as painful as procrastinating “just one more day” and waking up to find hits everywhere.
Zendog, I am two hours south of you in Lynchburg and the PC are out in full force here. They came out about four days ago. I had one tree hit pretty bad, the rest are not bad. I would imagine you would be a week behind me since I am further south, but that is a guess.
PC are out in full force where I live and we are getting a lot of rain. I sprayed at the first sign of PC damage with Permethrin with sticker. Then we got 3 to 4 inches of rain 3 days later. I could not imagine the Permethrin still being effective after that much rain so I sprayed again. Now two days later we are getting be tween a 1/4 to 1/2 inch of rain. Do I spray again next day? We are likely to get rain again in four days … The Hi Yield Pemethrin label says no more than 8 sprays a season. I am not too worried about the number of sprays as my season usually lasts 3 to 4 weeks and I can switch to Imidan if necessary…
Feeding bites. Thanks for mentioning the feeding bites Scott. I have always just looked for the crescent marks as an indication that PC were active and had though something else took bites out of my plums. I guess that they eat when the temps are low and when it is just right the start laying eggs. Learn something new every day on this forum.
Actara is a neonic that is translaminar (systemic) applied at the rate 4.5-5.5 oz/A. I weighed it out and came up with (12tsps) per oz. For a 100gal. spray at the maximum rate would equal to about 0.66 tsps per gal.
I think I’m just gonna go back to all berries.
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