My experience in southwest Missouri is that if you don't follow a regular spray schedule, you won't get much fruit and what you get is barely usable.

I would check with your county extension office and get their spray schedule for apples. If it is like our University, you can find it online.

The exceptions to the spray rule are sour cherries, pears, and apricots. Here apples and pears are susceptible to fire blight so I try to get varieties that have some resistance. I noticed a tip on a supposedly resistant pear, Kieffer, with fireblight. I clipped it off and will keep my fingers crossed. Spray doesn't do much good with fire blight.

Good luck with the apple trees.

Lots of organic folks just take what they get. Some years that's what I do if the rains keep me from spraying.

Thanks, Glenda. I do have info from the county extension office.

Stupid cedar trees...

Diane

I'm with you as I'm in the same predicament. We planted 4 apple trees last fall without knowing about the cedar apple rust. From another thread, I found what this fungus looks like and found 6+ cedars with it. Those cedars have got to go.

We have cedar trees but I have never seen it on my apple trees.....yet.

I found a fireblight tip on the "resistant" pear this morning and clipped it off.

Makes you wonder how our grandparents and great grandparents ever had any fruit when they were not bombarded with all the sprays and spray information. My grandma had peaches and apples and I can remember laying up in the apple orchard on a limb and eating those apples that had never seen a spray. Everyone always planted their plum trees in the chicken yard so the chickens would eat a plum pest of some sort. I did that and the blasted tree has never had a plum on it and this year is dead on one side.

Life is difficult sometimes!

Regina,

Taking out the cedars on your property will not necessarily help (but I'd do it anyway) because there are millions of cedars in Oklahoma. If you have a cedar tree within a mile or so to your south or southwest, wind can carry the disease from the cedars to your trees. The 'safe' distance from the north is only 1/4 mile, so look around your neighborhood and see if you find cedars within a mile to your south or southwest. If you do, you may have cedar apple rust issues even if you take out your own cedar trees.

Diane,

I simply don't grow apples or pears, and it was a deliberate decision not to invest time and effort in trees that have a slim chance of producing a viable crop.

I understand the predicament you're in...there's no reason not to give the trees a chance, but no matter what you do, I think you'll have cedar apple rust. There's a reason we don't have lots of apple orchards all over the state.

Do you know if the apples you have are (hopefully!) Cedar Apple Rust resistant?

Glenda,

The difference in what our grandparents and parents grew versus what we can grow makes me think of a couple of things. I wonder if they had heirloom varieties that had some natural cedar rust resistance, for starters. I also wonder if they had far fewer cedars. I simply don't remember large numbers of cedars covering the countryside in Texas when I was a kid...but when we drive down those exact same roadways now 40 or 45 years later, the cedars are everywhere. I also wonder if we have over-relied on so many sprays that we are producing continually weaker nursery stock with ever-worsening immune systems.

If I thought we'd have a decent chance of producing apples here, I'd plant the trees, and I haven't and it is unlikely I ever will. There's a propery about 1/4 mile south/southeast from us that has dozens if not hundreds of cedar trees per acre, so I think an apple tree wouldn't stand a chance on our property.

Dawn

Thx for the input. (A neighbor said our property was actually an orchard 40-50 years ago.) I have BIG cedars due east of my apple trees that have the fungus spores on them (in my front yard...grrr) and some in the fence line to the northeast, nothing that I know of to the south or southwest, which is all neighbors' houses. There's probably a bazillion on my north fence row, but haven't checked them yet. I checked my apple trees this afternoon and found one with rusty little spots on a few leaves. Am I too late? My dad has old apple trees (8 mi east of me) but don't see any cedars around his place. His produce every year. His are blocked from south winds by an adjacent house, same as mine. Mine are done blooming or the slight frost last week took care of the blooms. SO...what can I spray with? or is it too late?

I don't doubt that it was an orchard because the cedar epidemic hadn't hit us hard back then.

I'm going to link the OSU fact sheet on cedar apple rust below. Just click on it to read it. I believe it will tell you everything you need to know. Getting Cedar Apple Rust on your plants is a hit-and-miss thing and it all depends on the lay of the land, the placement of adjacent buildings, etc.

There are a few apple trees that are resistant to Cedar Apple Rust, but remember that resistance is not the same as immunity.

Cedar Apple Rust is a terrible, terrible disease and because it takes it so long to complete its life cycle, about the time your apple tree is looking like it is settling in nicely.....then the CAR shows up. I have a neighbor about a mile away who has 3 'pie apple' trees that have never had CAR and produce well, but he's the only successful apple grower I've met in our county.

You'll probably have to call you county extension agent to inquire about the spray schedule and recommended spray product because they usually don't put that in the fact sheets.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU Fact Sheet--Cedar Apple Rust

Diane

You will work hard for every apple you get if you have as much wildlife around you as we have here.

I have lived on, or near this place for 67 years. We had fruit trees then, but not now. A lot of critters that will eat your apples would have been food for us back then.
Even if we did not eat them, we would kill them anyway to keep them from gitting what little food we had.

Most people dont live like that now, and there is more game now than I can ever remember.

Larry

That's one of the reasons we have a dog (and certainly do "hunt" anything that interferes with our livelihood here). He guards not only our livestock & us but also the gardens. That's why we try to keep most everything close to the house and we rarely have any critter-related losses.

We may not have fancy have-a-heart traps but we do have a couple of really big freezers and we're not afraid to use them. LOL

Diane

I have apple, pear and apricot trees that were here when we bought the place and have never sprayed them and they produce every year...some years a little more and some a little less, but always plenty for our family and more. I have peach trees that get leaf curl and so far have contained it by pulling leaves that are affected immediately and of course bag worms that we also pick and dispose of manually. Maybe these are some of those heirloom varieties that someone mentioned 'cuz we also have cedar trees all around us.