Early-Spring and General Spray Questions for 4-yr old Maryland Orchard

9 years ago

Hi all,

I planted the following fruit trees in Spring 2012 in my Southern Maryland yard and although the pollination seems to be working great, I think I need to start spraying right away for what I think is Black Spot on pears, possibly Bacterial Spot or Coryneum Blight on the apricot (I think the leaves looked scraggly from shothole and that tree dropped its leaves before the other fruit trees), and bugs (Castleton gets aphids bad every year before the lady larvae demolish them and Japanese Beetles were awful in 2013):

- Apricot - Tomcot (citation rootstock)

- J. Plums - Methley, Satsuma, Shiro

- E. Plum - Castleton (least vigorous of the bunch, even on Myro rootstock . . .)

- Plumcot - Spring Satin

- E. Pears - Potomac, Blake's Pride, Seckel

- A. Pears - 2, can't recall the varieties but they are from Edible Landscaping

*I don't grow any apples, cherries, or peaches.

I just looked at my trees tonight and although the buds are clearly visible, I don't see any green yet so I'm guessing they are in the pre-bud-break stage at the moment. And it is going to be pretty cold this week (lows in the teens and highs in the 20s) so I should have a little time until bud break.

From reading a bunch of old Gardenweb threads where Scott was a major contributor (e.g., http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1449914/my-orchard-calendar?n=16), it seems that I should:

- Apply dormant oil spray very soon for bug control.

- Apply copper + nuFilm17 sticker solution to all stone fruits since it is more effective against Coryneum Blight and bacterial spot than lime-sulphur spray. (Please let me know if you would recommend a different approach based on updated knowledge . . . some of the threads I was reading were three or more yrs. old.)

Question #1: Would the copper + nuFilm17 sticker solution be effective on the pears against black spot as well??

General Newbie Spray Questions:

Question #2: Does it matter what brand or type of dormant oil I use? I see that Home Depot lists several, including one that is just soybean oil (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Oil-Pharm-1-qt-Organic-Dormant-Oil-Concentrate-OPC00012/205499072).

Question #3: Does it matter what brand of copper spray I use?

Question #4: Anyone have a small sprayer they love? I need to pick one up.

Thank you in advance for your input! I am making my own custom orcharding guide by printing out these threads . . .

-Lind

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Bart, CB is Coryneum Blight. It is not often a bad disease in the east but I got a very bad case of it from a tree I purchased out of a California nursery. It is nearly gone now, but not quite. I would ignore that line. Well, in general its not a bad idea to use dormant copper every now and then on stone fruit due to its good activity on both CB and bacterial spot. Copper can build up in the soil over many years so on the other hand L/S should be used most of the time. L/S is indeed lime sulphur and any good garden center should have it pre-mixed. It is possible to brew your own but for small amounts it is cheap enough to buy the pre-mixed version. Scott
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Hi Saintpfla Since you probably heard all the possible answers on your citrus problems, I am going to tell you what I know and saw at Echo last time that I was there in the tour for the fruit trees and people asked the same questions like you did. The expert planted the tree for demonstration in a mound, he said so the rains don't flood the tree. Made a hole without amending and put the tree in, situated so it looked the best and then added compost only on the sides. The older citrus trees had a big mulch on the sides but without touching the trunk (important) a lot of people asked about this and he said is okay. After that he went on to the bugs that affect the citrus like thrips and he said this year with the cold they had not much problem but otherwise they spray some sort of oil, somebody asked neem? and he said no, he did not give the name because I don't think is available for us. Now I have my private story to tell you, just remember I am no expert. I had wonderful citrus in Arizona, never had a problem or bugs or disease, did not even look at them and they had a crop that I had to give it away. They had small rocks underneath because I xeriscape in my yard. Now when I came to this house I bought some citrus, few of the same varieties like my neighbor, I only found that out when I went to visit her place because she asked for help with the citrus. I went again recently and 2 of her trees are dead and the same 2 of mine are still alive. I went over what they do and what I do, and this is what we did differently, she fertilize with some sort of spikes, I use the Sunniland brand for citrus. When we got hit with the winter, I cover just the trunks of the trees, she only covered the tops. Sometimes when I spray the tomatoes, I will use the leftover spray on the citrus, she does not use anything because she said some expert told her the damage of thrips is only cosmetic. If you try to foliar feed when is not hot just early morning or evening there is a chelated citrus nutritional spray by Southern Ag that you can get I think at HD. I hope that you get your citrus back to health and producing for you. Silvia
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Early-Spring and General Spray Questions for 4-yr old Maryland Orchard

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