Petal fall last week in Rockford? Wow, that's a good 2 weeks later than me and I'm only down by Peoria. I don't think Bonide Fruit tree spray would be that effective on curculio even if the Sevin and Malathion were in higher doses. It did seem to do a fair job stopping further codling moth hits and a good job keeping the apple maggot at bay last year. But my bugs are wimpy formerly organic bugs :) That Spectracide Triazicide Once and Done is effective on the curculio, Walmart should have it. What hits I've got since spraying it are either a crescent that is too shallow to have worked or drunken blobs in the spot the curculio tends to hit for me. It easily lasted the last 2 weeks, I'm pretty sure we've had some good rains since then. My plan is to use the Triazicide until late June when the curculio should be done and the first wave of codling moth has passed and then switch to Malathion (unless the straight malathion injures my McIntosh and Cortland too much then I'll go back to the Bonide and live with the drops it causes me). I have a question for you on the EarliBlaze is it a sour apple? I just planted one and haven't found many end user reports about it.

Need some more info like where you are located? Sounds like cambium issues from early spring temp flux from warm day to cold night. I lost a few plum and apricot trees this year at several different sites. It's really strange how this happens when there was no real unusually rapid temp drops. I think trees that are in very wet soil going into hardening off for winter are more susceptable but the trees I lost this year don't fall into this category.

I haven't studied this for years and only went about the first 2 layers into biology but as I recall, only half of ones DNA is expressed in actual physicality and so when plants self pollinate they are not creating a clone of themselves and actually contain a DNA capable of significant diversity. The complexity of DNA itself varies from species to species so presumably the more parts in the DNA the more diversity whether self fertilized or not. Plants that self pollinate have a much higher probability of being like their parents, of course, and peaches are well known for being fairly true to seed as do self fertile apples like Gravenstein. OK, that was fun, now lets let someone who actually knows what they're talking about answer the question.

Hi just wanted to add a few more good varieties for your area and info about the ones suggested. Dorsett golden apple was developed in the Bahamas and is known to produce fruit from southern California to Phoenix Arizona It's chill hours are 100 to 250 Anna's chill hours 100 to 300. For plums I like the weeping Santa rosa it's self fertile and chill hours are 150 to 400. Regular Santa rosa needs 300 to 500 chill hours and satsuma need about 300 chill hours. The last to were developed by the great Luther Burbank of Santa rosa ca around 1900. Good luck happy growing Cory