Diddywy: For most of us, spraying fruit trees is a necessary evil, but as part of a program of care that also includes pruning the trees and thinning the fruit. I don't know whether I can "simplify" any of this for you. I certainly haven't been able to do that for myself, and I have been at it for over 30 years. How large are your trees, and do you have a stable ladder that enables you to reach nearly all the fruiting limbs? If not, you may need to prune your apple trees down, and unpruned trees will likely require some major interior branch thinning to enable light to reach the fruiting limbs. Sunlight and air circulation are essential to growing large, healthy apples. I have found that the most effective, widely available insecticide for preventing early plum curculio damage on apples is Permethrin, sold in a 2.5% formulation. This product is sold by Tractor Supply as "Multi-Insect Killer", and may also be available from other sources. After a couple of early sprays, I thin the apples to the one best per blossom cluster, and bag it in a plastic ziploc sandwich bags. I have 1,400 bags ready to go for the upcoming season, prepared by cutting off the lower corners and the excess plastic above the zipper. Once the apples are in the bags, there is no longer any need to spray for the balance of the season. If you follow this procedure, you can produce big, perfect apples. Should you have further questions, please feel free to ask them, but please include a better description of your trees and do not ask for "simplified" solutions. If there were any of those, we would all be using them. And right now, get to work on your pruning. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

You can use your copper for leaf curl, but that's all its good for. It is somewhat effective against bacterial spot, but I doubt that will be an issue for you in NH. Copper has a good degree of safety, so if you are worried about children and pets, it's about the best thing you can use for leaf curl. Probably the only insect in NH you'll have to deal with is plum curculio, and brown rot the only disease. Those are problems for bearing age trees, so I wouldn't worry about them this season. By the way, you mentioned your Saturn is a dwarf. Do you know what rootstock it's on? This post was edited by olpea on Fri, Apr 19, 13 at 16:35

The goo is insect damage. In my region it's most likely oriental fruit moth. It really depends on the stage of development of the infected peaches, and whether or not it's internal feeders, to know which insect is affecting your peaches. Since peaches are dropping, you probably have internal feeders. My experience is that any gooey peaches with internal feeders bigger than a golf ball will probably be Oriental fruit moth. This season if you get any gooey peaches, open them up. Plum curc will be a legless grub, whereas the oriental fruit moth worm will have legs. In terms of spraying for either one of these pests, your timing is completely incorrect. For plum curc, you don't need to even think about spraying until petal fall. You can probably even wait till shuck-split. For oriental fruit moth, you can probably wait and start spraying about 10 days after shuck split. The link below is a good discussion even though there was a debate about the diagnosis. I still hold to my estimate that the lady was plagued with oriental fruit moth or plum curc, which is also probably what you are facing. Here is a link that might be useful: Peach Diseases, preventing

Mammy, You don't spray while they are in bloom. If you spray a pesticide while the bees are pollinating your flowers, you'll either kill the bees or drive them away and then there will be no pollination and likely little to no fruit. The Oklahoma State University fact sheet that includes a spraying schedule is linked below. Note that they tell you the various stages at which spraying is/can be/should be done. To make understanding it easier, they have photos that properly identify each stage. Home Fruit Tree Management Someone who actually sprays their fruit trees will have to tell you what they you as generally I do not spray mine, but I know that if you look for fruit tree sprays in the pesticide sections in the stores, they are not hard to find. Oldokie, I think the early spring snuck up on a lot of fruit tree growers. It didn't bother me since I don't spray but I have neighbors who missed the pre-bloom spraying as well. I am not 100% adamantly opposed to spraying, but rarely have issues with plum curculio or brown rot so just don't do it. If I ever start having a problem with them, I'd likely spray with something. If they ever invent a spray that will stop the squirrels from stealing peaches, I would use it. Dawn