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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] plum curc peaches etc.

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  • From: "Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] plum curc peaches etc.
  • Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:06:12 -0500

Alan wrote:
 
"I believe curc is repelled by the fuzz on peaches.  Nectarines are usually hit a lot harder."
 
Thank you, this is what I was hoping to hear, as I have no nectarines to compare.  For all I knew it could have been  that peaches are harder than plums.   
 
"Up here Jap plums are much more likely to avoid damage than the Euros."
What I have noticed is that the earlier plums, the ones that really bloom too early for the location, seem to have less damage.  I think it's because early in their career the weather is cool and curculio activitity is less.  20 years ago the trees of what I think were Ozark Premier cropped nicely when not frozen out, and often appeared to have curc scars but no bug inside.  I thought that they were failed curcs, but were they tarnished plant bug bites?  Meanwhile the native plums on our place had 100% droppage due to curc. 
 
"Tarnished plant bug does a number on peaches at a lot of sites and leave most other fruit undamaged.  TPG hangs out in the broadleaf plants in the turf and jump on the trees after mowing I'm told."
 
Maybe a good reason not to mow some orchards?  Or to postpone mowing till later?   I have never paid any real attention to TPG.  I see them in the garden, I ignore them.  Now I guess I'll start watching them.  The obvious question that comes to my mind, is how do they taste to chickens.  A bug that feeds on everything isn't so likely to have accumulated some bitter toxin.  When I went looking, I found they are a problem on cotton which reminded me that in the South there was a traditional strain of small weeder geese that were used to save manpower.  Did the youngsters eat TPB?  (And don't tell me geese are vegetarians, I have watched them gobbling Jap beetles.  Maybe the adult geese leave the bugs for youngsters who need protein to grow.  ) 
 
"Some varieties of apples suffer less damage from PC.  At one site I manage there are a lot of old strain yellow deilicous (prone to russetting and they ripen later than some of the new strains).  Without spray there is a good crop most years."
 
Those are my favorites anyway, but we have too many cedars on our place to grow YD.
 
 "The Macs, Red D.s, Baldwin, newer strain yellow D.and RI Greening apples seldom yield fruit at this site without spray."
 
That's pretty shocking.  Curculio may be an awful problem in this part of the country, but apple trees do crop without sprays.                                   Donna
   



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