Scott, I can't understand why after all this time you automatically suggest Surround AND bagging for the northeast. As I've explained here many times, and you apparently can't believe, in the northeast if you protect the trees for the 3 or 4 weeks following petal fall of latest blooming apples it is quite likely that bagging or subsequent sprays will be unnecessary. The orchards I manage cover a fairly wide swath of territory and direct fruit pest insects haven't been an issue for me after the above mentioned time in my part of the northeast. I think it a reasonable assumption that as you go further north there will be less pressure rather than more. Apple fly maggot is the only big question mark, in my opinion, as to whether further protection will be necessary. That and indirect pests like JB's which can't be bagged out. The one exception I've had in my own orchard and not the ones I manage is later plum curculio damage on Euro plums, but out of all the trees I manage I consider this an aberration. She, on pest issues, you should know that the closer the advice comes from your region the more likely the relevancy. I manage orchards from coastal Greenwich up to Canaan CT and from Kingston down to Ossining NY and areas in between.

I have some remarks. I grew a grapefruit from seed in circa the late 1980s. I'm not sure of the exact date but this tree definitely did already exist in 1991, although it was little more than a shoot at the time. I live in Switzerland and at the time was living with my parents who had a garden. The tree would spend the summers in the sunniest spot in the garden and come indoors in the winter. When I was at university my mother took care of this tree for me. However, circa 2000 the tree suffered a vey nasty attack by sticky mites and I had to prune the tree back quite heavily as washing or spraying didn't help. The tree recovered from this remarkably quickly, with new leaves sprouting out of the stubs within weeks after pruning. In 2003, the opportunity arose to move the tree to my parents' holiday home in the south of Spain. Basically this was a container with a lot of furniture and the tree didn't take kindly to being locked inside that dark and hot container for several days while being knocked about on the back of a truck and so lost most of its leaves. With days of being planted in the garden there it lost the rest of its leaves and I left it for dead. Returning the next year, however, it had sprouted fresh branches. Some years later, during my absence, my father had a gardener in who pruned the tree back heavily. The gardener also wanted to rip it out and replace it by a nice one from his garden centre and I had to do a lot of arguing to make him understand the significance of that tree and my dad wasn't exactly helpful. Then things went from bad to worse as in 2006 my mother passed away and she was the only person besides myself to really care about the tree (or in fact anything in the garden). The last time I saw the tree was in 2007 and that year the tree had about 4 blossoms (the first in its life), one of which had already swollen and there was the beginning of a grapefruit, already half an inch in diameter. The tree was no more than about 4 foot tall and to me it was a very happy sight. However, my dad picked up a strange girlfriend who hated anything that had anything to do with my dad's previous life including the fact that he had kids or that anything was important to us. The house was sold even though the guy who bought it put in a lower bid than I would have bid had I known it was up for sale. The new owner ripped out the garden for a swimming pool. A very sad story. But I decided not to give up and I have a three year old grapefruit grown from my seed on my balcony right now. I hope one day to see it flower and bear fruit. I also have a miniature orange tree which I bought from a local garden store. It is laden with fruit all year round. I guess it must be grafed but I cannot say where as I think I can recognise a graft when I see one but this tree doesn't seem to have such a place. My next project is to get a three-leaf orange. I understand this is the only citrus tree that can be planted outside in my type of climate (sustained sub-freezing temperatures in winter plus plenty of snow). Does anybody have any experience with these? Here is a link that might be useful:

You have at least 3 pests maybe 4 #1 Citrus Leaf Miner- It is suggested not to treat mature citrus trees for this pest #2 Cottony Cushion Scale- You may not need to treat for it if you can find some vedalia beetle #3 Ants- They seem to be going after the excretion from the scale so if you get rid of the scale they should also go away. #4 You may also have mealybugs. It was a little hard for me to tell from those pictures as they can sometimes be similar to the scale. Someone here may be able to better tell than I. This website that follows gives a good explanation about most citrus pest and how or when to treat them. It also has good pictures to aid in identifying them. Here is a link that might be useful: helpful citrus site

Giant Swallowtail eggs. Lovely butterflies, but, in certain areas (especially with commercial citrus growers), considered a citrus pest, as their caterpillars, called Orangedogs, can decimate a young tree. We talk about this frequently on our forum, and for most of us hobbyist growers, we try to find a happy middle ground - leave enough caterpillars on our more mature trees to let nature take its beautiful course, but pull them off our small young trees. If you have other host trees or plants in your yard (Rutaceae family plants), you can move them over to those plants if you want. Patty S. Here is a link that might be useful: Giant Swallowtail Life Cycle Photos