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  • From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
  • To: NAFEX List <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Spraying
  • Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:03:33 -0500

I'm still struggling to learn what needs to be done and what doesn't - and discovering mistakes I've made. I'm growing a LOT of stuff in my backyard, and it's all pretty crowded together, which makes spraying difficult.

For example, I've got strawberries growing around the base of my young Asian pear trees, so I couldn't spray the trees while the strawberries were blooming. Now, the New Century (or Shinseiki) pears are falling off the tree, just riddled with worms. There's often no sign of damage on the outside, but the whole inside is rotten. (Note, however, that the leaf spots - which worried me some weeks ago - came to nothing.)

On the other hand, my Gala apples, which are very close by, but could be (carefully) sprayed, seem to be worm-free. I picked them all a week ago, and many of them looked pretty bad, with all sorts of apparent insect-damage on the skins. But I haven't found a single worm in them. All of the damage has been cosmetic only, just on the skin. (Note that I haven't actually SEEN a worm in the pears, but the whole center of them is filled with frass.)

I'm not sure whether this is a difference in fruit (the Starking Hardy Giant pear that also didn't get sprayed doesn't seem to have this problem, as far as I can tell), difference in insect preferences, or difference in spraying - or maybe all three. As I say, I'm learning. But it's very hard to spray when I've got so many difference species, and different varieties of each, so close together. Not only do I want to avoid bee damage, but it's hard to find anything registered for everything. And I don't want to spray too much, of course (in general, I probably don't spray enough, I think).

Anyway - I'm slowly getting to my question - I haven't sprayed at all in probably a month, since so much of my fruit was so close to getting ripe. There wasn't much I could do about that. For example, I've got four peach trees growing in one spot, and I can't spray one without hitting the others. Well, three of them have already been picked now, and the peaches on the Intrepid are still green, far from being ripe. Should I spray it again now?

How important is spraying this late in the season? I see insect damage on some of the peaches already (I don't know how recent it is) - and there's been some black rot. On the other hand, my tomatoes and watermelons have really spread, so it will be hard to spray too thoroughly without hitting open flowers on them. And, well, I guess I'm getting lazy this late in the summer. I'd like to find an excuse to avoid it. Heh, heh.

With the apples, too, I've picked the Galas, and the Honeycrisp appear to be ready to pick (surprisingly, since I thought they'd be later than this). But the Suncrisp and Goldrush have a ways to go, so I could get in a spray after that. But are late sprays a good idea? I don't want to spray unnecessarily. And the fruit is just for me, so I do have some tolerance for damage (though I'd like the apples to keep).

Just wondering. I've been debating this with myself and finally thought I might see if there are opinions here. You don't know my exact situation, of course, but you might have some general guidelines. It's no big deal, really. Whatever happens, I'll try to learn from it and do better next year.

Thanks,

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.





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