North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>]

I'm still struggling to learn what needs to be done and what doesn't - 
and discovering mistakes I've made. I'm growing a LOT of stuff in my 
backyard, and it's all pretty crowded together, which makes spraying 
difficult.

For example, I've got strawberries growing around the base of my young 
Asian pear trees, so I couldn't spray the trees while the strawberries 
were blooming. Now, the New Century (or Shinseiki) pears are falling off 
the tree, just riddled with worms. There's often no sign of damage on 
the outside, but the whole inside is rotten. (Note, however, that the 
leaf spots - which worried me some weeks ago - came to nothing.)

On the other hand, my Gala apples, which are very close by, but could be 
(carefully) sprayed, seem to be worm-free. I picked them all a week ago, 
and many of them looked pretty bad, with all sorts of apparent 
insect-damage on the skins. But I haven't found a single worm in them. 
All of the damage has been cosmetic only, just on the skin. (Note that I 
haven't actually SEEN a worm in the pears, but the whole center of them 
is filled with frass.)

I'm not sure whether this is a difference in fruit (the Starking Hardy 
Giant pear that also didn't get sprayed doesn't seem to have this 
problem, as far as I can tell), difference in insect preferences, or 
difference in spraying - or maybe all three. As I say, I'm learning. But 
it's very hard to spray when I've got so many difference species, and 
different varieties of each, so close together. Not only do I want to 
avoid bee damage, but it's hard to find anything registered for 
everything. And I don't want to spray too much, of course (in general, I 
probably don't spray enough, I think).

Anyway - I'm slowly getting to my question - I haven't sprayed at all in 
probably a month, since so much of my fruit was so close to getting 
ripe. There wasn't much I could do about that. For example, I've got 
four peach trees growing in one spot, and I can't spray one without 
hitting the others. Well, three of them have already been picked now, 
and the peaches on the Intrepid are still green, far from being ripe. 
Should I spray it again now?

How important is spraying this late in the season? I see insect damage 
on some of the peaches already (I don't know how recent it is) - and 
there's been some black rot. On the other hand, my tomatoes and 
watermelons have really spread, so it will be hard to spray too 
thoroughly without hitting open flowers on them. And, well, I guess I'm 
getting lazy this late in the summer. I'd like to find an excuse to 
avoid it. Heh, heh.

With the apples, too, I've picked the Galas, and the Honeycrisp appear 
to be ready to pick (surprisingly, since I thought they'd be later than 
this). But the Suncrisp and Goldrush have a ways to go, so I could get 
in a spray after that. But are late sprays a good idea? I don't want to 
spray unnecessarily. And the fruit is just for me, so I do have some 
tolerance for damage (though I'd like the apples to keep).

Just wondering. I've been debating this with myself and finally thought 
I might see if there are opinions here. You don't know my exact 
situation, of course, but you might have some general guidelines. It's 
no big deal, really. Whatever happens, I'll try to learn from it and do 
better next year.

Thanks,

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. - Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, Jr.