Judith: Yes, it is time to be thinking of dormant spraying your peach trees just as the buds begin to break. But dormant oil, while effective against a narrow range of insects that overwinter as eggs or larvae in the cracks and crevices of the trees, is not the dormant medicine that is usually most important to stone fruit trees. I use oil spray on apples and pears to control aphids, scale insects and psylla, but the most serious problems on my peach trees are diseases that are fungal or bacterial in origin. Peaches are also subject to insects like the oriental fruit moth and the plum curculio, but these cannot be controlled with dormant sprays and must be dealt with during the growing season since their origins are normally away from the tree itself and sometimes beneath it. The most troublesome diseases of peach trees are bacterial spot/bacterial canker, peach scab, brown rot, and the leaf disease called peach leaf curl. All of these diseases can overwinter on the trees, especially in a mild climate such as yours. One traditional dormant compound for peaches is lime/sulfur spray, but I have found copper sprays to be more effective, especially against bacterial diseases. My current favorite is Kocide, a strong copper formulation sold as a soluble powder, but there are other copper sprays sold as liquids. It would be nice if we could use copper all season long, but we can't since it usually causes serious leaf damage. So the time to copperize your trees is now. You can, if you like, apply dormant oil and copper as a mix, and I often do this when I have a good supply of leftover oil spray. Oil spray cannot, however, be applied with lime/sulfur. Pruning of peach trees is about as important to fruit production as any spray you can use. I begin pruning right at fruit thinning time, opening the center, removing any crowded branches, as well as any top growth that prevents the sun from striking the fruit, and often return to prune the trees again about 4-6 weeks later if they develop too much bushy growth. Peaches need lots of air circulation, particularly in warm, humid climates, and sunlight is essential to developing large, healthy peaches. I do not dormant prune my peaches, but make sure you remove any mummies from the trees and keep the area around the base free from leaf litter and debris that could harbor disease. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Hi Glenn: If you read the section in the 2009 Midwest Tree Fruit Spray Guide for apples, you'll notice the recommendation for combining Nova (same AI as Immunox) with a protectant. See the note #2 in the right hand column under the section titled "APPLE TIGHT CLUSTER". The #2 note refers to the extended protectant program which includes Immunox/Nova as opposed to the "protectant program 7-day interval" which does not utilize Nova. You and I have to deal with CAR which complicates things some as far as fungicide choices. I haven't come up with a protectant to tank-mix with Immunox for CAR other than Mancozeb but, we had that discussion elsewhere. Why does the guide state that, "Growers using an extended protectant program should use an SI fungicide (Nova...)...(tank-mixed) with a protectant fungicide"? My best guess is resistance because the SI fungicides have resistance issues at least in some parts of the country. Hi Olpea: thanks for beating the captan doesn't work for CAR back into my head, must have slipped out during the winter. Have you lost any peach or apple buds to old man winter yet? Sometimes the spray thing feels like trying to juggle 30 balls at once in my head! Michael

I just got my first fruit tree, combo asian pear, and I am going to put a ceramic owl on my shed, near my pear tree, to keep the doves and other birds away. I have bird attracting trees, and a dozen nests in my yard, so I want to make sure they are eating bugs, and not my fruit. On my yard, we had a peach tree a long time ago, that no one took care of. It was basically invaded by ear wigs, and so we only got to eat a few each year! Ever since my yard has always had ear wigs up till last season. I took out a foot of bark 2-3 inches deep from my willow, cause earwigs were burrowed up in it like crazy.. I just used sevin spray on it from Lowes that hooks up to the hose. I rinsed the tree after to make sure they all fell out, and to keep the spray off my tree. It was a good method. I got them good, but I had to really get up in there to get the nursery of earwigs. Obviously they say you "can" use this Sevin Stuff on vegetables and fruit trees, but I don't think I want to go that route. I did use it on my vegetable garden 2 times last summer when I was spraying my trees, but I did it only on vegetables that you didn't eat the outer layer, like pumpkins and watermelon. Not that any of them needed it. --------------------------------- I am also researching more organic ways to spray a fruit tree. I have used other methods for other types of edible plants, like planting certain types of herbs or plants around things to keep bugs out. Like my pepper plants really kept bugs out of my bed, I swear I didn't have 1 invader in my garden outside my lettuce crops. And I think my catnip and bay leaf plants in my willow tree bed helped out a lot after the sevin sprayings. I also have very little of new bugs, because my "bird" attracting trees, are filled with bug eating birds. Birds are your best friends. It is about containment of the bug populations and getting less of them each season. No way to keep "all" bugs out of yard over night, or for good. I also wanted to note, that I have found simple methods in other parts of yard/house. Like putting ammonium sulfate all over my grass instead of fertilizer, cause I have kitties, and a dozen kids who live in circle in front of my house. I have also used salt to help kill stumps, cause kids love to play on the one in my front yard, so no stump killer. I have also used viniger based cleaning solution for all sorts of things. It keeps away bacteria and organisms, big or small. If you didn't know, you can clean your fruit off with viniger rather than water to get bacteria off. I bet there is a vegetable oil and viniger mix that would work for a spray, that keeps fruit natural and bug resistant. I am looking to find something like that, some house hold item that can used that isn't poison or dangerous to cats, kids or the fruit itself. If I find something I will let you, cause I am also a first timer fruit tree planter/owner. I would suggest, a "scarecrow" by the tree, and maybe some plants or herbs around the tree. Bay leafs have multiple uses. Birds and bees are what I attract to my yard, which can be flowers, trees, etc. A little flower can help out a lot more than you would think.

Thanks Jim, My intentions are that my son and I will plant the trees. I plan to rent a dingo with a large auger. These are small peach trees, so they won't need much of a hole, but I don't want to try it by hand. I've thought of doing some soil testing. The biggest issue with our soil and climate around here is getting peach trees up out of the ground (i.e. terraced). If that's done peaches grow like weeds, if it's not done, they die. I did a couple soil tests on the soil here and it was very low in P. However, the farm property has been used for cattle pasture for years, and so should have plenty of P (probably too much). Zinc was also low here, but I typically spray Ziram for early scab control which also provides zinc through foliar absorption (peach trees are heavy feeders of zinc). My general problem is that peach trees have been too vigorous here, so I wouldn't mind if the soil was a little less fertile at the farm (but it probably won't be). The soil profile looks very similar on both sites (20" of top soil followed by clay for as far as you want to dig). I plan to mulch the trees out there with wood chips and run a dry orchard, as I do here. "are you doing this on your own or are you getting technical assistance from a university or crop specialist?" I'm not quite doing it on my own. I've been touring orchards in the area for many years (partly with the Kansas Fruit Growers Assoc.) so compared to other orchards I don't think there are many surprises. There is a good fruit specialist in Missouri I've met and may see if I can get him to come out. My wife and I looked for land for a while and no site is perfect. This ones not either. The biggest issue is air drainage. The part of the land I intend to plant does flatten out in a low spot, but the low spot extends for over a mile, so I'm hoping the flat area is large enough to accommodate cold air drainage. Part of the property is on a southward facing slope, but I don't intend to plant on that (at least not right away). I wish the property didn't have the air drainage concern but trying to find a property easily accessible to the public, zoned rural, doesn't flood, at a reasonable price is pretty difficult. My biggest question was row spacing, since I don't have any experience running large equipment down rows. I emailed a few commercial peach growers and basically got back similar answers. Namely, it's personal preference. Jerry Frecon (fruit specialist from Rutgers) sent back the most humorous response - "I could take you to orchards with 16' row spacing and when they are heavily laden with fruit you can hardly walk down the rows. I see the growers drive his equipment through these blocks and break limbs, knock off and bruise fruit but he does not worry about it because he says he is picking up to 1200 bushels per acre at this close spacing and high vigor." I've pretty much settled on 25'rows which is a bit more space than growers around here allow. I plan to allow 30' at the ends to turn equipment. There is a very good resource here, http://www.clemson.edu/extension/peach/commercial/index.html called the "Southeastern Peach Growers Handbook". It is obviously written for peach growers in the Southeast, but the Midwest doesn't have anything nearly that extensive, and a lot of the information crosses over.