It doesn’t look like 2 4 d damage and it usually takes about a week for dicamba to show damage/control. Usually brush herbicides take a few days so they can take the chemical into the root zone. I would guess that in a couple of weeks it should leave out again. Only time will tell.
I can not see well the leaves of your tree, the tree is a pear tree? I use sometimes captan 45% and this product is toxic in some pear leaves, the leaves are burned and end up falling to the ground after the tree sprouts.
Sean, that is truly horrible. I am so sorry for you and your trees. Ugh!
Sean, I am so sorry. You can buy more trees and I recommend that you cosider that just for the upper that it is. Buy some in pots. Figure the cost of replacement and present this to the guy. Having some to grow on whilst you see what happens to these gains you a year and greatly eases the loss.
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Hey everyone, Thanks for the sentiment. I feel completely defeated. If anybody could understand how awful this is it would be you guys on this board. The tree in the picture is an apple. What should I search for to find thecitymans thread. I would like to read it. How will I know if its going to kill the trees?
Sean, I am very sorry for you. If spray guy admits it is his fault, why not to ask what he actually sprayed? May be that will give some idea on what could be done for faster recovery process or if it is something really bad to decide on that liability insurance offering.
Sean, I am sorry for your loss, but it may not be as bad as you think, If it is just a too strong an application of captan, it will burn off the leaves and in a couple of weeks they should put out new leaves. I don’t think it is residue from sprayer because it acted too fast, which is a good thing. The longer the leaves are “healthy” the more chemical the plant can take in. Trees can get defoliated and can recover pretty easy. You do lose this years crop but they should be ok for next year. Hopefully I am right.
its not fireblight because it only affected the trees and grapes that were sprayed. other apple trees and grapes within 25’ didn’t get affected one bit. also all the weeds on the ground around where it was sprayed look awful like the trees
If you read the further on the thread you will find out that the cityman’s issues were caused by spray drift and how he confirmed that is what caused his issues. I would think that the vegetation around the trees being affected the same way is a clue that your trees were sprayed with something other than what he was supposed to spray them with!
Just so you know, sean, it took my trees about a week to show the very first sign of problems and 2 weeks for me to know something was really wrong. And at no point- from the first sign of distress all the way to death- did it look like your trees. So I think you can rule out residual spray in the tank and rule out 2, 4-D all together. Hopefully that means its just captan which, according to others, may just cause leaves to fall but then grow back fairly quickly. I hope it goes that well for you. Again…I know your heartbreak intimately. But it will pass, I promise!
Must of been more than residue in the tanks to hurt so many trees. Used the wrong stuff I would imagine.
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Just got a text from the sprayer, he says that he should have results from the tissue samples back today, and says as of right now his theory is that the surfactant sold to him was not compatible with Captan, does this theory make sense to anybody?
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That is always possible and certainly makes sense. It sounds like your sprayer is behaving responsibly, but it is strange that an incompatibility with such a common fungicide would be unknown. If it is an oil based surfactant that should have been obviously incompatible and likely on the label. You should ask him what the name of the surfactant is.
If it is that, I would expect trees to recover, but this is difficult to predict. I was surprised how an oil application to old apple trees when tissue was frozen (trees were at about half-inch-green) killed entire scaffold limbs one year at a site I was managing but not spraying. Just killing the leaf buds did this- I would have expected the tree to have pushed out new buds from one of two ways- latent buds or simply through cellular differentiation. However, it didn’t kill entire trees.
Has your grass started to die around the trees?
The grass seams fine but some of the broader leafed weeds are affected the same way as the trees
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So the spray may have been a weed killer which, would seem possible for this time of the year. I sprayed weed and grass killer around my trees for years (NOT DIRECTLY) without issues as I’m sure others have.
Brush killer on the other hand would concern me however, this time of the year in your area I wouldn’t think brush has broken out yet… Dandelions… yes…
I am hoping for the best outcome for you… Hope your bees are ok.
Update: This is what i have been told by “Spray Guy” He got a chemical report back from cornell and they had determined that it was a combination of overcast, high humidity day, and captan and surficant (suficant was determined to be compatible with captan) that resulted in this problem.
Im suspect that this is the complete truth. Doesnt add up to me
He said used Pyganic, captan, surficant, and i believe a Pyrethriod (dont know if he is calling the Pyganic the pyrethriod, or if he sprayed pyganic and another Pyrethriod combined)
He is refunding my money that i have paid him this year and i told him i would be handling fungisicides and insecticides from now on. He agreed that if the trees end up dying he would use his insurance to cover their replacement, and i allowed him to come by this season to assess the trees and treat them to keep them alive if he wishes.
You guys all know that this solution by no means makes up for what has been taken away from me… this is my favorite hobby i have ever had, and have been obsessing over my orchard and my desire to learn as much as possible about fruit trees as possible since i moved out of the city and bought my own farm house on 3 acres in the countryside four years ago. Thank you everybody for sympathizing with me, I know you understand how im feeling
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Pyganic is an organic with pyrethrum as the active ingredient. It is not effective to control fruit pests. It is not a pyrethroid, which is a chemical of similar structure as pyrethrum but with considerably more knock-out and staying power.
He is probably lying about the diagnosis IMO, because those are common conditions. I would ask to see a copy of the report and I would also report the incident in a way to make sure you are completely protected, maybe start out nice to get a record of his mistake that he provides a signature for- has he put any of this on paper?. If he has no official copy of the report, then the whole thing was just a dance to give the aura of professionality and you are deserving of full compensation- even for the set-back. If he is being dishonest, as I suspect, you should tear him a new one, metaphorically speaking.
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Alan,
The old college linebacker Sean would have handled this in a storm of fury and destruction, but the 34 year old, Recovered rage-a-holic, Sean who now finds happiness through peace and daily meditation is trying to handle this in a calm collective manor, without blowing a fuse. which has been a test for me I can tell you that.
I have taken Alan’s advice and requested Via TXT (this way its documented) to have him send me a copy of the report. I have also taken pictures of the most damaged tees, and cut some samples off of them. Does anybody know how I would get them tested if I need them to be?
Here is what they look like now 5 days later
The Cambium looks ok to me in one of the samples I took
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