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[mauch1@aol.com]

I tried Surround for three years.  I have pretty much given up on it (I have some left, but I haven't sprayed any this year).  My spray program is 'troubled' in that with my regular work, children, etc.  I have grave difficulty getting the right timing (and weather conditions) to spray.  My spray program often breaks down (i.e. no further spraying) around June.  I have generally gotten very few apples, and fast rottening plums and apricots.  Asian pears (with the exception of internal browning, which isn't directly related) did ok.

This year I decided I wanted to get fruit, so I purchase Imidan, Assault for insect control and Captan and Sulfur for fungicide control (these weren't my first choices but the other pesticides I initially considered were out of my price range).  Thus far, I've kept my program up, and things are looking pretty good.  I'd like to bag my fruit, but I don't know if I can get to it.

I have about 20 apple trees, 10 pear, 5 plum, 4 peach, 3 apricot and 3 cherry (and lots of other berries, and minor fruit, which generally don't get sprayed.  I have a 20 gallon electric pump sprayer powered by a 12 volt tractor battery ( generally spray about 10 gallons at a time, as I move the sprayer around by handcart, and more than that is more than I want to haul).

My problems w/ Surround:
Tends to clog the sprayer.
Not adequate control.
Washes off very easily. 
Makes neighbors nervous about what you're doing.
Difficult to get off of fruit.

If 1 and 2 were better, I'd still use it, but as it doesn't, I think I'll keep up with the standard spray regimen.

Went to a Cooperative Extension Twilight Fruit meeting yesterday evening  to learn and earn credits toward my pesticide license renewal (the following only really applies to PA).  Here's what I remember:

Bad year for diseases, often been cold but with warm periods w/ heavy (splashing) rains. There may have been brown rot infection periods for stone fruit during bloom, which may not appear to the fruit begins to color/ripen.  Spray at fruit coloring up.  Fireblight danger, try to remove infected wood before damaged growth turns brown, otherwise may have already spread deep into scaffold limbs.  

Second generation of Coddling Moth starting.  This weekend through next week are important times for control.  In PA Brood XIV of Cicada coming this year.

Chris Mauchline
SE PA, zone 6
40° 5' N 75° 51'W
~650 ft elevation

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