Fungicide for apricots

11 years ago

Hello everyone,
This past winter i have sprayed my apricot trees with a oil and copper mixture while the tree was dormant. The trees have had brown rot in the past. I have not eaten any fruit off the trees in 3-4 years, the fruit were infested with worms and brown rot and fell off. And last year the late frost destroyed all the flowers none survived.

The flowers on my trees are just starting to open can anyone suggest to me what i can do now while the flowers are opening and recommend to me a fungicide that i can use now, something i can easily find? I know im not going to rid the tree completely of brown rot but maybe control it a bit.

And another question
should i continue to spray my peach tree with lime sulphur and oil during bud swell?
im obviously a noobie here when i comes to fruit trees..
thank you

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (8)

ronniebilt
11 years ago
You never spray a Apricot with lime-sulfer
steve_in_los_osos
11 years ago
If you sprayed the peaches with L-S after leaf drop, then you only need to hit them again just before or right as the leaf buds begin to show the barest signs of green tips--unless it rains right after you spray.

I had to do the second spray three times due to rain this year. The sudden cold slowed the leaf emergence and the rain kept washing off my work! BUT, I have zero PLC this year!

If you can get Serenade in your area you might want to give it a try for the apricots. I don't think you want to be continually spraying with copper all season.
Related Discussions
Wanted: Disease resistant apricot variety
Q
Comments (23)
I thought the tree is already to be replaced as the discussion ensued, if so, what cultivars would be better, given the history. Tomcot would be the best suited, based on Don Yellman's excellent advice. Harcot would also be nice, but recalling that the place is around the Bay Area, it would not get enough chilling hours in most years. We are 12 miles west of the Sacramento Capitol as the crow flies. In our area a couple of years ago, during prolonged low intensity rains around bloom time, there were severe brown rot, blossom blight on apricots. Peaches also got the blight and rot aside from peach leaf curl. Fruit sets were generally poor. During those times, Tomcot, Goldkist, Royal Rosa, Harcot apricots fruited adequately without needing to thin out (that means just adequate fruits). Last year, we had relatively very dry spell during the bloom, and almost all stone fruits whose diseases did not get deeper into the tree, they have limb breaking yields. Those are a few observations from around the neighborhood who seldom spray their trees. Oftentimes, it is useless to spray your trees in an urban setting, because of the neighbors. And even if you did get their permissions, not everyone will spray at the same time. So you will always have a reservoir of diseases and their vectors. Often hobbyists have a plethora of cultivars in close proximity of each other and not big blocks of monocultured trees. Planting distances of trees are designed for machineries to pass through in commercial orchards and these spacings are never applicable for a city backyard in prime costing land. Commercial growers and home hobbyists have different objectives in raising fruit trees or plants in general and have dramatically different environments in which they operate. I take the observations and experimentations of hobbyists and home growers with proper context and value them much better than the standard methods meant for commercial growers. One has to consider these primary differences when discussing various issues.
...See More
Apricot Tree Problem
Q
Comments (1)
The tree probably suffered too much and is dead. Several years of a bad disease can sap all the energy. RIP. For best control of shot-hole, spray copper right at leaf fall and right when leaves are about to come out. Skip the neem, its not going to help. I would also spray dilute copper through shuck split; dilute copper is around a fifth of the dormant amount. Scott
...See More
Organic Insecticide/Fungicide
Q
Comments (5)
Get some milky spore for the japanese beetles if you can get over the price of it. Copper and sulphur and oil are the main options for diseases. It is not easy to grow fruit organically in the mid-atlantic. Get and read The Apple Grower by Phillips, its the best book out there for organic fruit growing. If you don't have the time to commit to reading a book on it you are not going to succeed. Its hard and takes an investment. I have been learning for five years now and can sort of get some organic fruit, but I still have a lot to learn. Scott
...See More
apricot tree blight
Q
Comments (7)
Yugoslava: I tend to favor a diagnosis of brown rot in this case. It would be helpful to have an overall photo of the tree to see how widespread the disease is. Bacterial diseases tend to progress more slowly, preceded by leaf yellowing or spotting, while brown rot affects smaller branches and fruiting spurs very quickly, resulting in clusters of dead leaves right on the tree, as is the case in your photos. Brown rot is a fungal disease that overwinters on infected areas of the tree, as well as in fallen fruit or mummies left on the tree the previous season. So the first efforts at control should be directed at careful removal of all infected areas of the tree, and cleanup of any fruit that may have fallen to the ground. One or more dormant sprays with an effective dormant season fungicide like copper should be applied to try to break the disease cycle, but it may also be necessary to spray with a growing season fungicide at blossom time, and again a week or so later. You may be able to slow or stop the progression of the disease by applying a fungicide now, but first prune off all the areas affected by the disease. Send the prunings out in the trash, not to your mulch pile. Diseases like brown rot tend to be more severe in springtime conditions that are cool, windy, and wet, so weather plays an important role in the spread of these diseases too. You do not indicate whether you have ever found it necessary to spray your tree with fungicides in the past, but that would be good to know. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
...See More
Scott F Smith
11 years ago
Anatoli, I use sulphur on my apricots even though you are not supposed to. Its interesting that this idea of not using sulphur on cots didn't make it down under, in Australia they spray sulphur on cots. So, I am somewhat doubtful if there is a reason for this restriction, or maybe only a few varieties are sensitive (I never noticed any sensitivity on my several dozen varieties). Anyway its your call on it in the end. I have also used Serenade but I don't think it works as well as sulphur.

Sulphur is a good organic spray for brown rot but needs many applications. If you are using synthetics try Monterey Fungi Fighter, it should zap any brown rot and it is one of the less toxic synthetic sprays. For the worms you need to use Surround clay to keep off the curculio, as soon as the fruits are bare (the shucks - flower remnants - have fallen off), or use pyrethrin spray. I don't like pyrethrin since it is a poison, Surround is non-toxic clay. You also need something to protect against moths, oriental fruit moth in particular. Either Surround or pyrethrin will do that. You need to protect against the curc until the cots are nickel sized and from dime sized to maturity you need to protect against the fruit moth.

Scott
andrew_swmo
11 years ago
The first year I planted any fruit trees I used Lime Sulfur once during the summer. It killed a Harglow apricot tree but Sungold and Moongold did not show any damage. Also a young Nectacrest nectarine tree died after that spray. Later I learned that I was not supposed to use LS on apricots.

This post was edited by andrew321 on Wed, Apr 24, 13 at 9:37
Scott F Smith
11 years ago
Andrew, I should have made more clear I am using sulphur, not lime-sulphur. The latter is more phytotoxic. Sulphur is also labeled bad for cots but I have not noticed any phytotoxicity. I sprayed all my cots with sulphur just last week.

See link below for a study of using both sulphur and lime-sulphur on cots, there is no mention of phytotoxicity problems (but, they only were studying two apricot varieties). Note the study also shows sulphur is the best of the non-synthetic sprays for brown rot.

I know that some grape varieties are phytotoxic for sulphur and you can find lists of those varieties. I have never seen such a list for apricots. I did have a Harglow myself, but it was back when I was not spraying sulphur on my apricots.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: sulphur on cots study
anatoli9954
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks For the information Scott
I did a search online and walmart carries Monterey Fungi Fighter, i will head there tomorrow and pick some up.

Do i spray it while my flowers are in bloom or wait till petal fall?
foolishpleasure
11 years ago
I has the same problem you have. I think I fixed the problem. I sprayed the trees several times with Horticultural oil all season during the dormancy period , When the flower came on I spraying the oil but also added Monterey fungi fighter and immunox multu-purpose fungi all mixed in the same sprayer. I even added some Captan. My flowers are intact and the fruits are forming. No flower rot thank God. I will keep spraying the same mix every 10 days. I use the mix on all my trees apricot, cherry, beaches and pears. Some expert told me that Monterey protects the against fruit rot. So far I am so happy.
anatoli9954
Original Author
11 years ago
how do you know if you have flower rot?
i checked the flowers on my apricot tree that have opened, most are white and sort of symetrical but i have many that have brown pedals or flowers that look a deformed with missing pedals
It started raining as soon as the flowers started to open..rained for almost 2 days and the low this morning was 34

Fungicide for apricots

Comments (8)

ronniebilt

steve_in_los_osos

Related Discussions

Scott F Smith

andrew_swmo

Scott F Smith

anatoli9954
Original Author

foolishpleasure

anatoli9954
Original Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Fungicide for apricots

Comments (8)

ronniebilt

steve_in_los_osos

Related Discussions

Scott F Smith

andrew_swmo

Scott F Smith

anatoli9954Original Author

foolishpleasure

anatoli9954Original Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

anatoli9954
Original Author

anatoli9954
Original Author