North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

Sigh. . . 

I have several fruit trees in my yard, and I also have a lot of oaks.  And 
I have had major problems with winter moths in recent years.

I can spray the apples and blueberries myself, but there's no way for me to 
protect the oaks.  And my trees definitely need protection from the 
voracious caterpillars, which eat out the swelling buds before they've 
opened.  So I hired a tree service to spray my trees, being careful to tell 
them I had fruit trees and they shouldn't spray blooming apple trees or 
blueberries.  I wrote on the contract that I would pay for one or two 
sprays, skipping the second recommended one if it coincided with apple 
bloom.  I hired one of the few companies that uses spinosad, because of its 
lower residual toxicity to bees.

So right before the apples bloomed I called them frantically and said 'you 
need to come now or it's too late.'  and they did.

Then, a few days later, when all the king blossoms and some of the others 
had opened, they came again.  My huusband was home and tried to tell them 
it had already been done, but he wasn't very forceful, and they sprayed 
anyway.

This morning he called me at work to say they just sprayed again.  We are 
just past peak bloom, with every variety still having open blossoms.  The 
blueberries are at peak bloom.

I haven't seen a lot of pollenators lately.  I was excited to see a lone 
bumblebee yesterday evening.  I suppose she's dead now.

No real question here.  I won't hire that company next year.  I may just 
let to oaks go unprotected for a year and see how bad it is.  I guess if 
anyone has advice about rebuilding my pollenator population I'd be 
grateful, but I'm not too optimistic.  Just wanted to complain to someone 
who'd be sympathetic.  Thanks for lend an ear (eye).

___
Ginda
eastern Mass., zone 6