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["loneroc" <loneroc@mwt.net>]

Richard and Claude,

 

One of the reasons that I like VB is its crispness.  Again, you've got to pick it just right in order to have decent flavour yet not have passed over to mush.

 

  Scab is indeed a problem on VB. My (single) tree is on M26 and grows in nearly pure sand.  The top 6 inches of soil is improved somewhat from wood chips and shredded oak bark (I'm a mile and a half from a saw-mill).  My fruit trees are not grown organically, Claude, so most of my "method" is not gong to help you.  Last year I used one post bloom Imidan spray on the apples, two on the plums:  curculio pressure is heavy here in the desert (prickly pears, box turtles, etc.).  I use sticky traps for apple maggot and have very little if any coddling moths.  I hadn't sprayed in summer for several years and maggot (or trypeta, as it's called in some older literature) populations have built up, in spite of religious gathering of drops. This summer I'll probably do a spot-spray of Imidan for the maggots. I don't find that I need thorough coverage by Imidan--bugs seem to move around and get their comeuppance before they do much damage. 

 

On to scab--I used two sprays of Captan last year.  I don't spray it according to tree development/expansion.  I watch the weather forecasts and spray just prior to long periods of rainy weather.  The primary scab infection season (which lasts until early to mid June here) is what I'm concerned with.  If sesitive apples are infected with scab while they are still very small I get a lot of malformed apples that don't keep. (This is a problem on MacIntosh, too)  On Vista Bella I also do extensive thinning--removing apples that show signs of primary scab because they drop earlier and don't really crisp up.  I get a lot of secondary scab on my apples, but the damage later in the season is purely cosmetic--nothing I mind, though friends who receive bags of apples from me wonder if the scab'll make'em sick.  (I find the little patterns of black dots that secondary scab infections cause to be a really interesting and beautiful addition to the appearance of the fruits!)  I don't find the foliage of VB to be particularly scab sensitive.  It doesn't ever defoliate like a few of the ornamental crabs that I have.  I would not grow VB if I were a commercial organic grower--too scabby---but I would think that a few well-timed sulfur sprays would do the trick for you as long as you realize that you're going to have a 50% loss of post-June drop apples to scab.  Not a problem for me.  The  50% that I don't thin are perfect and very welcome in July.

 

Steve H. Lone Rock, WI

Message -----

From: Richard MURPHY

To: nafex

Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 7:03 PM

Subject: [NAFEX] Vista Bella

Vista Bella

You could do worse for a semi-early apple.............

 

Francis Fenton pulled one off a tree. (zone 4 Mercer, Maine)

An ordinary looking apple of average size.

 

He took out his jack knife, and cut off a wedge for my wife and I.

It was nice; light, crisp, not too sour, not too sweet, good 'appley' aroma.

Very white, fine grained flesh; not mealy at all. Not a tooth buster, either.

 

It won't blow your mind, really, but it's all-around decent and he says a reliable cropper.

 

Murph

 

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