North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Stephen Sadler" <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>]

I like groworganic.com, if you want to stay natural/organic.  There’s a more Eastern US supplier somebody posted, as shipping too far east of the Rockies might get expensive.  Curculio will be difficult.  Some growers have good success with Surround and meticulous fruit clean-up, others understandably use Imidan or other non-organic controls for that. 

 

Don’t forget the fertilization part of organic pest control.  Healthy, well-fed plants are better able to resist pests and diseases.  Yes, I mean organic, soil-building fertilizers.  For whatever reason, organic fertilizers seem to have the best results when your soil is healthy and nutrient levels are steady.  You should have both a spray and fertilization program in place. 

 

Peaceful Valley Farm Supply (Groworganic.com) carries a very general spray/powder fertilizer combo called Brix Mix that not only provides a broad spectrum of nutrients, but specifically can help with resistance to brown rot. It is in no way a cure or treatment; just a blend of fertilizers that that help with the plant’s own resistance.

 

Look for lime sulfur or copper sulfur dormant sprays for brown rot control.  Some don’t last more than a season; some can be applied as dormants or later.  I like Polysul and Microp/Sta-Stuk M. One is lime sulfur, the other micronized copper tri-basic copper sulfate with a spreader/sticker.  You might like the Microcrop better – it’s better for wetter conditions, and it stores better; but there are many products to choose from.  You should have dormant spray ready to go asap.  I have no problem using chemicals – I just use organic ones.

 

For your cherry fruit fly, you can trap them out with fruit fly traps (make sure cherry fruit fly is listed) at 3 traps per tree, but that’s going to get pricey.  I’ve gotten away with one trap per tree in a healthy orchard with years of soil management, but 3-5 is what’s recommended, and I wouldn’t expect results with less unless your trees are very small.   Spinosad is made from naturally occurring soil-dwelling bacteria, and works well on fruit fly.  It’s specific to garden pests, with very low toxicity to beneficials.  You can reduce your total number of traps to one to monitor for fruit fly then use spinosad.  There is a combination bait/spinosad being tested, but  I don’t think it’s available yet.

 

~ Stephen

 

From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Deb S
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 10:33 AM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] where to purchase?

 

Hi folks

So far I have a small orchard of 4 pear trees, 4 cherries, a plum, pluot, apple, and two peach trees.  Last year was my first harvest (hooray!)  I had not used any chemicals, as I wanted to see what I might have problems with.  We had brown rot on peaches and some cherries, cherry fruit fly worm, and plum curculio.  I did careful clean up and pruned out the areas where there was fungus on the peaches.

Can anyone suggest a source for appropriate sprays for these three problems packaged for the small orchardist? Online sources would be great :)

Thanks!

deb