North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jim Fruth <jfruth@uslink.net>]

Title: Apple Bagging and Plum Curcullio

John,
    I have no apple fruit damage due to Plum Curcullio (PC).  I also grow plums.  It has been my observation that apple growers, around here, Pequot Lakes, MN, have no PC problems if they also grow plums.  Those who do not also grow plums do have PC damage on their apples.  From my observations, I would theorize that PC prefer plums, if plums are available and, if no plums are available, they will attack any other fruit.
    I have eight domestic plum trees plus a few wild plum trees and my PC damage on plums runs 10 to 20%, generally with one PC inhabiting one plum - I do not spray my plum trees.  This year, and every so often, I get to break their cycle.  The plum crop is a disaster.  Due to a prolonged cold spell immediately after petals opened, the plum pollen died before the pistils became receptive.  Consequently, I got less than 1% of the fruit I'd normally get.  Instead of one PC per plum fruit, this year there were dozens or more.  I got to break the PC cycle by picking all fruits and destroying them before any PC hatch.
-- 

Jim Fruth
Brambleberry Farm
Pequot Lakes, MN
www.bberryfarm.com

From: John Barbowski <jbarbowski@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Apple Bagging Update
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <805a7da10509180912127bc1cd@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Jim,
 I recall reading somewhere that to help control plum curcullio, that you 
should spray at 3/4 petal fall. Was your success without any spraying at 
all? (namely dormant spray followed by the the PC control) Being allergic to 
work, if I can avoid these early sprays, it would be less labour for me.
 I try to bag when my apples are roughly quarter size.