Spraying Questions

General Fruit Growing
1

I have a small orchard here in Northern California with approximately 350 trees. Peaches, nectarines, cherries, apricots, plums, persimmons, apples, pears, pluots, pluerries, etc.

Aside from a few peaches last year, I didn’t get much fruit because the trees are young, however this year looks like it is going to be big. The first of many to come.

I’m going to do some spraying and I have these:

Captan
Ziram
Spinosad

Questions.

  1. Should I spray Spinosad before or after the fungicide? How long between insecticide and fungicide?

  2. Any particular reason to use one of the fungicides over the other? Or is the most important thing that I alternate and just not only spray one?

I have a gas powered backpack sprayer that I am just going to roll through my orchard on a golf cart and spray. Nothing crazy, but I’m not someone who believes that I can avoid spraying and still get good fruit. I am surrounded by almond orchards, everybody sprays.

Thank you.

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2

You’re in California though, and you can definitely get good fruit without spraying here. I think the almond growers are mostly spraying for brown rot. If you’re good with sanitation, you shouldn’t need to spray for it after flowering. There’ll be minimal overlap with insecticides.

I don’t believe Captan controls peach leaf curl but Ziram does. Both are supposed to control brown rot but the preharvest interval for Captan is much shorter than Ziram (0 days vs 30 for cherries).

Cherries are a major exception though. You definitely need to spray to control spotted wing drosophila. Spinosad as soon as the fruit starts turning yellow then every week or two I think until harvest.

Persimmons need no spraying at all here. Apples and pears really only need control for codling moth if that’s an issue where you live.

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