North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>]

Dale,

 

I'm not familiar with Ortho oil, but for the most part, modern horticultural oils are all the same.  It used to be dormant oils were just that, oils used just for the dormant season because they would burn the foliage if used during the growing season.  Now with improved refining methods horticultural oils are much safer and can be used during the growing season at lower rates.  The newer type oils come under the names, narrow range oil, superior oil, supreme oil, etc.  These oils are designed to evaporate quickly, so as not to burn foliage. 

 

Oils, as an insecticide, have one mode of action, to smother the eggs/insects.  Therefore one superior oil is as good as the next.  There are some organic oils, that are derived from natural sources.  I've no idea if they are as safe for foliage as non-organic superior oils, but I assume they would have the same insecticidal activity.

 

I would encourage you to use a commercial product, for cost sake.  250 trees is a couple acres worth and it takes quite a bit of oil to get good coverage.  Full dilute sprays (recommended for oil) are somewhere around 300 gal/acre.  Oil is mixed at 2%, so even with one dormant spray you're looking at 12 gallons of oil.  I think you'll go broke buying Ortho.  And don't waste your time trying to perfect a homemade product.

 

If your trees are young, you won't need as much oil.  You can buy 2.5 gallon jugs while your trees are young (Believe me one 2.5 gal jug is not a 10 year supply for 250 trees.)  For larger quantities they sell it in 50 gal drums.

 

Mark

KS

----- Original Message -----

From: Dale Burkholder

To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2010 7:56 AM

Subject: [NAFEX] (Dormant) Horticultural Oil

I am getting ready to apply oil spray to my orchard (250 trees) and would like suggestions on what oil to use. I bought some of a Ortho product labeled "Specially formulated for residential use".  Just wondering what that means.  I take it to imply the product is a practically worthless imitation of the real thing, being sold to people that will use it on a few trees, hoping it will help, and never having the slightest idea if it killed any bugs, and the buyers are coming back the next year with their credit cards to try it again. I'm skeptical of many of the products on the market, and worse than skeptical of the big corporations that operate with a completely different level of integrity than small, local, know-your-customer suppliers. Heard too many comments from professional growers about junk products.
Is this stuff worthwhile to use or is there a better way to do this? Either a good cheap homemade product like vegetable oil and Basic H (even if I have to apply it twice) or go buy up a 10-year supply of something expensive that really works - the local Ag. Co-op dosen't have any commercial product. What do you all recommend?

Dale Burkholder
Shenandoah Valley, VA
Zone 6


The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.  Psalm 14:1

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