Well, in my garden here in Santa Cruz, I am spraying this week as we have a very short window in the mild climate here. I had to manually defoliate many apple trees in order to get ready to spray. Some apple trees tend to be slow to defoliate since we practically never drop below freezing here, and this despite 800+ hours of annual chill. The cool temps 32-50F don't seem to be enough to entice the apples to loose their leaves in a timely manner. I don't spray Granny smith and pink lady since they seem to keep their leaves all year - they just molt. Those of us in warm climates have a very, very small window of time to Spray. I do it once around new year and I go at the peach trees a second time in Spring (early February here) to get peach curl. I don't spray anything else besides polysul (lime-sulfur fungicide), which is amazing for peach curl. I also do a second spraying in February on any apple trees that showed any signs of mildew the previous season. I will also spray my cherimoyas this year as the extended chill makes them more subsceptible to fungi. I've never done this, it will be an experiment to see if it actually works. Does anyone know what organic to spray on apricots? I've never sprayed them, but I've noticed there's some sort of blossom induced wilt that occurs in the Spring, it's not fireblight, it's called something else, I forget the name.

It seems everyone's rudeness sensitivity has a different adjustment. If you want to see rude, flip on over to the Soils forum or the Organic Gardening forum where it is too common to gang up on one member and flat out call him stupid in so many words. On the corn gluten meal thread which ZS started a week or so ago, he said I had accused him of something but he would ignore it because he wanted to remain positive. I put the following into a message. Can anyone help me see where I might have made an accusation and one that had a negative note to it? Then ZS replied with the following Dchall_san_antonio wrote: > In real life it is rare to find someone who has had a good experience with CGM as a preemergent. I'm not sure if he was ignoring my request or replying to it. If anyone would care to help, please send me an email through my member page. I don't see it. It seems to me that ZS is egging us on by posting quotes that fly in the face of what has become common knowledge. When we try to explain either what is wrong with the quote or where the quote left off vital information or where the source quote was taken out of context, then the tone of the messages changes for the worse. To me it is clear who threw the first punch on this thread. Tiemco asked some questions and ZS bit his head off. I offered some clarification and got my head bit off. ZS if you prefer to read books and do not like to read what we have to say in this forum, then why are you here? I'm not saying there is no reason to be here, I'm simply asking why you are here? Are you here to offer us the benefit of what you have read? If that is the case then we will respond completely differently. Most people come here to find out if what they have read holds water. We have made that assumption with you. If we have been giving you advice when you were not looking for it, then that might be the root of the antagonism. Giving unwanted advice is considered rude to a lot of folks. Please let us know. You can establish your credentials based on what you read outside the forums and we'll leave it alone. I might add that disagreeable messages are one reason that forums lose membership. I've seen some really great people leave this forum simply because of one or two members who pestered them mercilessly. If you would not like to receive our thoughts and comments on your threads, it is easy enough to make that happen. Since I seem to be a catalyst for you, ZS, and since I don't see where my remarks are setting you off, then I'll stop replying with these thoughts and let you go.

Red, the classical dormant spray is a mixture of horticultural oil and lime sulfur. The lime sulfur is a fungicide, mostly, and the horticultural oil is mostly an insecticide although it will destroy fungus spores. Rose leaves are easily burned by lime sulfur/ oil mixtures and that's why their use is restricted to the dormant season. I don't know about your zone 6, but here in my zone 5, I don't see a lot of use for a dormant spray. The few insects that bother my roses (japanese beetles and aphids, mostly) do not spend the dormant season on my roses either as hibernating adults or as eggs. The only serious fungal disease in my garden is blackspot and several studies have indicated that blackspot spores: a) are not released during our winters, b) do not germinate at our winter temperatures and c) in the absence of germination, do not survive for more than a few weeks. This means that the only source of blackspot reinfection that's present in my garden near the end of the dormant season is the adult fungus, living either in infected fallen leaves or in infected lesions on the canes. Lime sulfur/oil sprays do appear to kill blackspot spores, by smothering or perhaps dehydrating them, but what's the point of that during the dormant season in a cold climate? I know of no evidence that lime sulfur/oil sprays do anything at all to the adult form of the blackspot fungus.

Busy1, We need to rename you "toobusy1" because you're way too busy. I'm too lazy to stay that busy. Clearly you like being busy. We have a friend like that---he has to be doing something every single minute and just can't stand to sit still. Krussow, Some years the weather wins. Sounds like so far you're having one of those years. I hope it gets better. Need some heat? Come down here to Marietta. We're currently 92 degrees with a heat index of 94. I'm not complaining because the veggies need the heat and sunlight. Out west it has been as high as 107 today. That's a bit too hot for me, especially in May. It is supposed to be hot here tomorrow too. I don't mind 'hot' but after a few weeks of really hot summer weather, I'm ready for autumn temperatures again. One thing about the spring weather here is that whatever weather we're having usually only lasts a few days before it changes to something else. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Today's High Temps at the Mesonet Stations