Sounds like a good plan!! I hope I didn’t go off the deep end. 
Topping and trying to fix it is just a pet peeve for me.
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In my opinion Shigo was a brilliant nut-job, in love with only evidence from his own experiments and delusional about the deep significance of some of his conclusions. I once watched him deliver a talk to fruit growers at a NAFEX conference in which he suggested that the use of synthetic nitrogen in fruit production was terrible for the trees and shortened their lives- although this was towards the end of his life and his brain may not have been functioning at full capacity at the time. However, if you read his books, check out the research he refers to and you will find it all his own and limited to 2 species of forest trees
Trees in the forest are decapitated frequently- when snow happens to come extremely early and trees are still in full leaf, the woods can sound like a war zone with all the top snapping that goes on. The trees usually recover fine although attachments may be weak and threaten anyone underneath for years to come. I believe the primary danger of topping is if trees are not managed afterwards back to a dominant leader and that only a tree in its senescence should be unable to recover from such a wound. The danger is mostly to people under the tree not steered back to apical dominance. But I am no scientist, and this conclusion is based only on personal observation. I’m just about certain that topping does not adversely affect the species I manage, which happen to be fruit trees.
Pruned trees tend to outlive unpruned ones because a trees mortality is often linked to the fact that they get bigger every year- making the very process of staying rooted impossible over time as the forces of gravity overtake the ability of the tree to achieve adequate anchorage. Slow growing trees tend to be longer lived. That is where Shigo’s suggestion about N may have relevance, but only on trees left to their own growth habit.
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My grapes are getting hit hard with black rot. I’ve been spraying copper (dormant and couple times 3 weeks apart) but it’s not really helping. Even the fruit is catching it. A repeat of last 5 years. I’ll end up with no grapes again 
Is it too late for immunox now? If I spray anything now (copper or immunox) do I have to clean out infected parts, leaves and fruit, before I spray to make it stop spreading? Or it doesn’t matter?
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I made a bow and arrows a few years ago . I used red cedar for arrows , they weren’t that straight but I used big turkey wing feathers to fletch them and I was very surprised at the spin they put on the arrow and how accurate it made it. Those little veins may not be able to straighten the whip out of your arrows before they hit, just thinking.
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Oh, I built that river cane arrow more as a novelty rather than a serious arrow. I regularly shoot and hunt with Port Orford cedar arrows. In building a couple of river cane arrows, I think that I was just trying to figure out how Native Americans made their arrows out of river cane. And I am pretty sure that was basically what they used in this area back in the day.
But those are dyed turkey wing feathers on that arrow! 5 inch helical 3 fletch. Feathers bought at an archery shop. Have never die cut my own turkey feathers. But you are right - they do look like plastic vanes in the picture.
You would be surprised how accurate a bare shaft is out of a well tuned center shot (or close to center) bow. In fact that is how many archers tune their bows. They test shoot bare shafts and adjust the brace height and nocking position until the bare shaft arrow flies true without fishtailing or porpoising. Then after tuning with the bare shafts the fletched arrows will be that much more accurate.
There is several things going on with my river cane arrow in the picture that is not readily apparent to the eye. For one, it is a footed arrow. It has a hardwood section in the fore shaft that is glued into the hollow river cane that accepts the metal point. While I am sure that Native Americans did not fool with footed arrows, I did it just for the heck of it. They probably just tied their point into the river cane with sinew and glued it up with hide glue.
Also, the nock on that arrow is a little different than what I think that N.A. would have had. It is not a self nock, rather it is a nock that I whittled (which was a real pain) from hard wood and glued into the hollow river cane and sinew wrapped to strengthen it. And I am sure as heck don’t think that N.A. did it that way. Rather, I am sure that they simply notched behind a node in the river cane for a self nock. And that would have been their arrow nock. Dumb me.
That is interesting that you made arrows out of red cedar. I am not sure that red cedar would be straight grained enough for arrows. By the way, red cedar is not a true cedar, rather it is a juniper.
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I tried a river Cain arrow last fall but even though it was straight I liked how the cedar arrow flew better. Red cedar is not straight grained enough so what I did was split a two inch limb into quarters then took a pocket knife and whittled a straight shaft out of the blank, a very long process, I used full feathers, as the cedar shafts are so big and heavy that they can handle that. I will post a photo if I can remember.
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Here is my hickory bow , backed with duct tape, yes I know it’s not traditional but I bet if Native Americans had access to duct tape they would have used it to. The arrow is red cedar , and the nock is turkey leg bone which I just kind of thought of and ended up working great. I can tell you that even with just the wooden tip I would darn sure not want some one to shoot it at me. It is not nearly as finely crafted as your bow but it reflects a little of my personality, a tad rough around the edges.
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Sorry about your black rot. I would destroy the infected fruit. Also, I would not think that you would have to be too concerned about the infected leaves just now. The leaves will shed and can be disposed of later. Really I think Captan would be a better choice for fighting rot than Immunox. Immunox is better for the mildews and rusts. Use some type of sticker when you do your spraying. Don’t allow mummified grapes to over winter. Hope this helps.
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A flu-flu arrow! Great for target practice because your not as apt to lose your arrow. Yes, I have a bow that I built out of hickory too. I could ask you at least a thousand questions about yours. I sort of had to quit bow-making because the dust was wrecking my sinuses. Osage sawdust is especially damaging to the lungs. But I could talk all day and night about bow and arrow design. Maybe we should open a thread in the Lounge area.
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Yes sometime we should do that , this is a little outside general gardening, lol.
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Has anyone else noticed that some threads you have read in the past dont show back up for long periods of time even when someone else has added to them? Has to be something in the software for the site. I click both the new thread button and recently updated thread button every time I come onto the website. I wont see a thread for weeks then suddenly it reappears and shows that " X number" of posts have been added since the last time I opened that thread. Some of those additions will be weeks old.
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A lot of posts are happening now so maybe you are not looking far enough down on the main page list? As the site has gotten more active I have also missed more stuff. I thought there was an error a couple times but when I went back to the main list I always found the post if I scrolled down far enough.
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This site has turned into a smoking hot machine…!! You’ve got to read fast to keep up.
I have to say growing fruit is so much better than any other site I’ve used. The people are so nice. And I love the sites features. Ourfigs started about the time we did. That site is nice but not nearly as active and I don’t like the format. When you click on an old thread you start back at the top every time. Their threads don’t go 1,000 or more posts for sure.
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That could be true. Just seems like some of them disappear from my “view” for long periods of time and then poof! They are back. No real worries this is a great site!
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Susu - After doing additional research I believe a product called mancozeb would be a better fungicide for a critical case of black rot such as yours. It is available for backyard growers. Captan seems to control the rots in my small vineyard but you may need something stronger. While I don’t think that mancozeb is available in the big box stores, you should be able to find it in the larger nursery and/or agriculture stores. Also, it is available at Amazon. The only issue that I see with it is that it has a 66 day preharvest interval. It apparently is much nastier than Captan. It is available under the brand name of Bonide.
This is where I am getting some of my information:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/pub360/pub360ch5.pdf
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What is the difference in control and suppression of fungal diseases by products?
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Presumably it is a matter of degree, with suppression meaning reducing symptoms without eliminating the pathogen. Control suggests that for all practical purposes the pathogen is eliminated which might mean no more applications are needed until symptoms return. With suppression the return of symptoms would be automatic therefore you are stuck having to reapply until environmental conditions control the fungus.
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I like to grow peaches but have really just started in the past 3 years (have one tree that is older). I have two Reliance Peach trees. The pic below show one that is pale green (in some cases yellow). Any idea what can be causing this? It is not too much water, not two much fertilizer - could be not enough water?. All of my other peach trees are dark green. Suggestions? One note I think the rootstock may be Nemaguard where the rest of my trees are likely Lovell or Bailey.
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Nemaguard is very sensitive to wet soil. The other possibility is lack of nitrogen.
I missed @Susu’s post and your reply. You should still get some good results with Immunox at this point. I spent years trying to grow grapes with only copper and at some point I got tired of all the spraying, you need a great many copper sprays and copper is not good for the soil long-term. So I now use myclobutanil aka Immunox and have pretty much eliminated black rot. I don’t think mancozeb is any better and it has a very large PHI so its only useful in spring.
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