Is there Plum Curculio in Idaho?
Not as much PC, you could go organic with only PC. This has been done with surround and such. Brown rot is the real problem. No good organic solution.
Sorry as the discussion was about PC, thanks for asking so I could correct myself. That thought, that āit canāt be doneā just popped in my head. And it is incorrect, it can be done with a lot of effort, like putting the clay back on every time it rains etc. If itās PC that is the problem. If your fruit has any spores on it, itās not just PC that is killing your fruit. If just PC the dropped fruit looks fairly normal, until you find the worm. The larvae weakens the fruit around the stem, and it drops.
Brown rot is so ugly too. The fruit turns to a brown watery mush, and clumps of spores are on the skin. When touched the spore become airborne. This stuff will infect branch tips and flowers too (blossom blight). Sometimes it takes as long as five years to find your orchard. You may finally clear your orchard of PC just to see brown rot. Often PC kills the fruit before you would see brown rot. No doubt stone fruit is the hardest fruit to grow. Organic or not organic! I think itās worth the time to do it. Many often change their minds as the learning curve goes to infinity. It takes some time to master the growing of stone fruit.
I finally got there or at least 90%. Many want early peaches, but most are not really that good. I myself like late peaches. Early in the year Iām flooded with numerous berries. But getting tree ripened peaches in October is awesome! I mostly get pluots. You can let them hang weeks after they turn color.
Fall Fiesta pluots on 10-05-2021
Spice Zee Nectaplum is not exactly early here. These Nectaplums were harvested 8-31-17. As you can see these are not small fruit.
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So much to learn! Brady makes a good point - Idahoās ag department says PC is not known to be in Idaho. Brown rot also sounds like a real bummer though. I thought that copper could be used as an organic control for brown rot - but then Iāve never tried it.
Those are some of the better Spice Zee pictures Iāve seen!
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Copper doesnāt work, sulfur works better, but best case you get half the crop. I find that optimistic. Brown rot severity has to be experienced. The founder of this site stays as organic as possible. He managed to rid himself of synthetic insecticides, but started using the manmade fungicides, else not worth growing. He is in Maryland.
I myself do not like using copper anymore than needed. Itās forever and very toxic to plant roots. Copper is used to clear septic systems of roots. I use it once a year, and will not use it more. Of course most products do not have enough copper in them to kill anything. I use commercial grade which is about 10 times stronger. I use it mostly for peach leaf curl, but it is good at killing most fungal spores.
Check out the threads on brown rot to learn more about it.
Although this too might not be a problem in your area. Seems in Idaho brown rot is a disease of the potato. I could not find any reference to fruit brown rot.
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I had a question from another eugene member on japanese plum and cross bloom times:
I think all of my japanese plums and crosses (beauty, hollywood, early golden, shiro, methley, satsuma, santa rosa, flavor supreme, flavor grenade) are near peak bloom right now, the only one that stood out as being early was sprite cherry plum, maybe a week early, and the only late ones are dapple dandy and candy heart and sugar twist, a week behind
this osu guide has some bloom times in it
from the guideās bloom chart page 16 I have santa rosa, shiro, and beauty and I couldnāt tell the difference but theyāre all listed as mid march which agrees with what I saw this year
@z0r Fantastic! Thank you. Weāve had some early blooms in our peaches lately because of our lovely random 70 degree mid February days weāve had the last few years. Good to know things havenāt changed that much. And looks like Iāll have a lot of grafting to do in the coming years 