Spray in the evening before two days of rain? Worth it?

12 years ago

My orchard is not where I live and I can only get out there on the weekends. Last week, both the peaches and plums were blooming and I'm anticipating petal fall by this weekend. I'm all set to spray for PC but the forecast is for rain all weekend long (starting after midnight Friday night/Saturday morning).

Do you think it's worth it to hustle out there friday night to get a quick spray down just before sunset and before the rain? Or do the combination of night and rain make it a wasted effort? I don't know when the PCs are active, but I'm assuming it's not at night (but maybe they are?).

What should I do? Spray before the rain, or hope for an early end to the showers and spray when they're over (assuming they end before sunday evening)? I'm spraying imidan by the way.

Thanks!

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Comments (5)

Randy31513
12 years ago
If it were me I would spray especially if we are talking about a few trees here. If you are talking lots of money to spray then throw my reply out.

The critters are not watching the forecast. As they say, timing is everything.
rweissman
12 years ago
I'm not sure of the answer to you main question, but according to Michael Phillips's "The Apple Grower" 83% of PC activity is at night.

Rob
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olpea
12 years ago
That's a good question Bart. Sometimes if I can wait a day or two for rain to pass through before spraying an insecticide, I'll wait. If I anticipate having to wait a week though, I won't put it off that long. Instead I'll go ahead and spray ahead of the rain.

Imidan does a pretty good job even in rain. It's not that rainfast, but it's so lethal to insects, it doesn't take much residue to control the target pest (plum curc. in this case). So it will probably do some good to lay a spray down ahead of your rain. At a minimum it will kill all the PC that have migrated to your orchard. Not that others won't migrate in, but you'll probably put a pretty big dent in the overall population.

As an FYI, for fungicides, you actually want to put them on before a rain event. The rain event is what to protect against. The fungicide will wash off (unless it's a systemic) but will do it's job in the process. There are some exceptions of course (powdery mildew) but most fungii thrive on rain.
bart1
Original Author
12 years ago
Randy - Only 10 or 12 trees. Barely any cost in chemicals!

Rob - Thanks for that PC stat. Very intersting. I had no idea these guys were night owls.

Olpea - Great point about the fungicide. I'm so paranoid about bug damage I forgot to even think about rain and rots and all the nasty stuff wet weather brings.

The decision has been made! I'm going to hustle out there and spray tonight! Based on the "PC night activity" stat above, I may do all my sprays at night!!

Thanks everyone!
Scott F Smith
12 years ago
Bart, while the spray guides say petal fall for stone fruits I usually don't start spraying for curc until a week or two after that and I usually do OK. Shucks get in the way of the curcs activity and I don't think I have ever seen a curc on a pre-shuck fruitlet (I am out at night with a helmet light and have watched a great deal of curc activity). The earliest apricots I have had major curc problems on since I just wait for the peaches to be ready to hit them which is too late for the early cots. This year I am going to start earlier on the cots. I'm not saying the spray guides are wrong, the early spray is good since the curcs are starting to wake up, just not absolutely required so could be delayed given your rain timing. My early bloom petals are falling now and I'm not even thinking about spraying for curc.

For apples you do need control right at petal fall, the above is for stone fruits only. I expect this is because the curc can get her egg-laying butt on the apple fruitlet right after petal fall, but the shuck makes that a difficult maneuver on stone fruits.

Scott

Spray in the evening before two days of rain? Worth it?

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Spray in the evening before two days of rain? Worth it?

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