[NAFEX] pear fungicides in southeastern NY

Alan Haigh alandhaigh at gmail.com
Wed Jan 21 06:41:59 EST 2009


Although pears have a reputation for being amongst the easiest fruits to
grow with low or no spray input I have found that reputation to be somewhat
over stated.  I have seen a neglected Bosc orchard loaded with almost
perfect fruit and often seen Seckel trees untouched by pruners or the
spray-gun for decades producing bushels of very small but otherwise great
pears.

Maybe the trick there is total neglect, but on my own property and most
sites I manage, scab becomes an issue and often psyla as well.  While I'm
serious that pruning for superior fruit may contribute to rank,
vegetative growth that encourages psyla and possibly scab, I have also seen
lots of scab on neglected trees to the point that they are completely
defoliated by mid-summer.  Any fruit is worthless for lack of sugar.

It became apparent early on that my combination of Nova and Captan was not
affective in controlling pear scab- at least in a low, 2 or 3 spray
program.  I now primarily use Flint, one of the new strobes, to address this
problem but I'm not really sure what the minimum number of sprays is I can
get away with.   Apple scab I can control with as little as 2 sprays with
Nova, one at petal fall and one 10 to 14 days later.  Pear scab seems to
require more input.  Do any of you out there in a similar climate have
experience you can share on this?

I have been dealing with psyla with several summer oil applications during
the season, which is an additional PIA.  I'm interested in any contributed
wisdom on this war as well.

The Seckel pear, which is often touted as an ideal home orchard pear, is
particularly susceptible to scab, by the way.  It is also a squirrel magnet,
even compared to other pears.
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