Bonide Home Orchard Spray not working?

12 years ago

I have been spraying my sweet cherries frequently with Bonide Home Orchard Spray. Nevertheless, something is eating the cherries anyway. The effected cherries are 1/2 eaten, mostly the bottom of the cherry, right down to the pit. It is apparently not birds because the small stems would not support a birds weight and the cherries are not ripe enough (very pale pink) to interest birds. Also, the fruit is still on the stem -not picked. Is there a better (more effective) anti-fungal, anti-mold, multi-purpose home use product that someone will recommend? Or, any insight on this problem?

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Comments (7)

franktank232
12 years ago
Its birds... You are explaining the same thing I've seen with my sweet cherries. Birds will start attacking at first blush of red. Birds are very stealthy and you rarely can catch them doing the damage.
rweissman
12 years ago
Yup, Frank's right. Sounds like birds. Two days ago I found a cherry just like the one you described. The first one to get a blush of red, and half of it was gone. My little Montmorency is still small enough (8-9 feet) that I was able to create a birdnetting teepee to protect the rest of them, which I quickly got up yesterday

I put a bunch of 1/2 rebar poles around the tree, slid 10' long 1/2 wide PVC tubing over the rebar to make a cage, draped the birdnetting over and around the cage, and clamped down the edges of the net with spikes.
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franktank232
12 years ago
Yup... net them if you want some cherries. I bought that black plastic netting. I use it on strawberries too. Birds are pretty easy to deal with once you get a net over them.
denninmi
12 years ago
Birds will strip cherries at the very first hint of color, long before they're edible to us.

I get the last laugh this year -- there aren't any. They all rotted when it rained every blasted day back in May.

Well, OK, maybe Mother Nature got the last laugh. At least my strawberries are decent.
User
12 years ago
My cherries are perfect. Strawberries drowned and full of rot.
achampag
12 years ago
y'all are scaring me that the birds are gonna eat my strawberries lol! i mean, if i get any
glenn_russell
12 years ago
Dahermit-
I've posted the text below many times in the past. (Hopefully others will forgive me for being repetitive). When starting out, I lost a good amount of time and money do to that stuff (to the detriment of my trees) and I hate to see other people fall for it like I did.
When posting, could you also let us know zone you're in?
Thanks,
-Glenn

Many people on this forum (and I can now add myself to this list) are not big fans of Bonide Fruit tree spray (and other manufacture's all-in-one fruit tree sprays). The reasons are:
1.) The quantity of some of the ingredients is often insufficient to actually accomplish the task. Take for example the quantity of Captan in there. Many people here have argued that it is not nearly the strength required to be effective. Compare the quantity in there with that on the plain Captan container.

2.) In the all-in-one spray, you are often spraying chemicals that you do not need, for pests and diseases you do not have.

3.) The all-in-one says it controls things that it does not. It says it controls Cedar Apple Rust, but with it's only active fungicide being Captan, it can not, as Captan does not control CAR.

What's the alternative you ask? Identify your pest and your diseases and treat them individually. If you know those, let people know what they are. In some cases, you can even use things that are considered organic (Copper is often considered organic) to fight a very nasty diseases. Bagging your apples is another option to protect your fruit from insects. Finally, if all that fails, there are the effective sprays, but they're not the Bonide (or other mfgr) combined fruit tree sprays.
-Glenn

Bonide Home Orchard Spray not working?

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franktank232

rweissman

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