Marknmt, As one whose sprayed quite a bit of picloram (Tordon) I agree it is quite powerful. I've sprayed it on the bark of thorny locust and killed whole trees. I know its been in the press in America and the UK lately, but in spite of all the press, I think the risks of picloram tainted manure are a bit trumped up. I've been in agriculture all my life in one way or another. For a few years I owned a hay crew (square bales). In this area, people rarely apply fertilizer to hay ground, even less, pesticides. There simply isn't enough margin in hay ground to justify the expense. Even if they did apply a carry over product like picloram (and around here it would be very rare) the carry over and diluted effect probably wouldn't harm the trees. In spite of what the literature says, it only lasts a year (I've seen broad leaf crops germinate a year after it was applied). The same applies to tainted grass clippings. I've heard people warn against chemically laced clippings. However, I have a sign in front of my house requesting clippings, leaves, and chipped wood. For years I've put grass clippings around my garden crops, including tomatoes. I've never noticed anything but excessive vigor from this type of mulch. I'm confident these clippings are from lawns loaded with herbicide residues because so many lawns around here picture perfect. I think the reason they are innocuous to my tomatoes is that most of these herbicides bind to the soil and are rendered ineffective by the time they reach the roots. Mark, I hope I haven't come on too strong here, but my experience simply doesn't mesh with the admonitions. I understand others may have different experiences. Ryan, You bring up some good points. I've also read not to fertilize newly planted trees. However, nurseries and commercial orchards frequently fertigate (even the first year) to get a jump on growth. I think this could be especially relevant to your situation where the soil seems to be poor. In terms of specific Miracle Grow recommendations, I can't give you any. Only that your soil seems to be lacking something, so as an immediate measure, I would add a complete fertilizer (NPK plus trace minerals). Admittedly this is a shotgun approach, but without a soil test, I know of no other way. There is a lady from TN on the Nafex fruit group who complains about how poor her soil is. Maybe her experience has unjustifiably biased me, but I can't help thinking of her experience when I see your pics. But in all candidness, I'm only throwing educated guesses at your problem, as anyone on this list can do. It's a bit early for any serious pest control. Your extension is doing you a disservice to recommend Malathion for any serious pest control. You'll find some university extensions are well tuned to the needs of fruit trees. Others are merely a chapter ahead of you in the most basic cultural fruit practices. It's possible your peach tree could fruit next year. In that case, I would post more specific pest control questions this fall, or winter. Regarding the manure. I would just call around to local stables. There is one about 2 miles from me. They have more manure than they can get rid of and stack it in piles. Although I've not used their manure (because my mulch sign works so well for me) I have used other stable manure. I've also used loads of composted dead pigs. The only problem I've observed is that if the stable waste is extremely hot, it produces a lot of vegetative growth at the expense of fruit.

"What caused the injury(ies)" Mabel, Montmorency is said to be good to -40F but not under every circumstance. There are so many things that have to be just right for your tree to be healthy enough to survive that limit. For example a tree that has begun to become stressed can become infected easier with bacteria P.S. short for "Psuedomonas syringae", which is an opportunistic disease. Once stressed and established these bacterias then try to kill plant cells in the way diseases do and the P.S. bacterias do "ice nucleate" adjacent plant cells. This means that the cells that are otherwise prepared to survive much colder than below freezing temperatures are less able to because the cells get injected with compounds that favor ice crystallization at closer temperatures to the normal freezing of water, when then the cells will freeze and burst. I would say most extension services are really not prepared to advise all the things you must do (tree health) because this can become a rather involved project in some weather locals and even soil types. You can't always rely on spraying to prevent initial infection sites because many of them have got specialized and resist the chemicals. I would be prepared to tell you to burn the tree after you've eaten the cherries, or at least surgically torch all the open diseased area. And if it is the disease I truly think it is (it happened in the same way to my cherry in Alaska) planting a peach (lower 48 peach experiences) will give you the same maintenance requirements because they are just as susceptible or more, to the same disease as cherries. But if you DO plant peach I've heard about a new peach rootstock bred in N.J. called 'Guardian' that has in trials shown to keep the host tree scaffold in good enough condition to prevent these bacterial infections, for the most part.

Highlander, This yr. 1/2 of the dahlias I planted,(a little weird)do have spider mites on them. They are planted in my garden that has a bridge in the middle of it going to the pool. So the dahlias are planted on both sides. On 1 side they have spider mites, growth is stunted but they are still blooming. The leaves are all mottled looking. Going out now to spray w/ Hot pepper wax insect repellent. The mites are spreading and I want to stop this. I used this repellent on my tomato's for white fly and it worked for about 2 wks. It did not hurt the plants or change the taste. But we had a lot of rain and the fly;s are back! Spraying again/bought concentrate and more organic. Last yr. my front yard were I plant orange dahlias were doing great then all of a sudden they looked like they were dying. I dug them up and they had wire worm. I treated them w/Triazicide-concentrate and they came and bloomed all summer in to fall when I dug them up/ treated them and put away for the winter in cellar. This yr they are doing fine, no wire worms. Don't know what the other bug is. Did you go on the bug finder on this site, it is helpful. That is what got me going on this site. Lots of pictures. Good luck karen

Yes, good idea, I now have 2 tough plum rootstocks - 1 here and 1 from a failed peach tree. I'll have to make that new skill jump sometime. Is there a decent simple guide for someone with zero knowledge on grafting?