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  • From: Caren Kirk <quirky@videotron.ca>
  • To: nafex mailing list at ibiblio <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [nafex] Organic Brown Rot Control
  • Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2012 11:30:54 -0400

Thanks Scott.

My worst hit trees last year were the cherries (U of Sask) and a Euro plum. Just prunded them yesterday and really opened up the centre of the cherries, which are very bush-like. I'm sure this is going to help. I also cut off some branches that seemed to have been compromised. I was very vigourous about clean up and checking for any remaining mummies.

My peach needs some serious pruning as I let it run wild (see below) but as I had to hack half of it off yesterday, I'm going to go gently with what's remaining. It wasn't badly affected last year.

Bought some sulphur too, so will try that sometime next week. I'm a bit confused about the order for spraying, would it be dormant oil first, followed 3-4 days after with sulphur?

With regards to disease resistance, unfortunately up here I have to put hardiness at the top of my list and disease resistance second! I believ the cherries have quite good resistance. I have no idea if my peach is a resistant as it's an unknown rootstock of a reliance peach that didn't survive the winters up here!

I'll look out for Serenade and Saf-T-Side Oil, I find there is so little choice of products around here, maybe I'm just shopping in the wrong places!

Good job we don't get Brown Rot too bad up here!

Thanks again,

Caren Kirk
St. Jerome, QC

On 3/23/2012 12:41 PM, Scott Smith wrote:
Caren, brown rot can be a challenge for organic growers. You need to attack
it on every level possible.

1. Keep the tree healthy, well-mulched with organic matter, and regularly
fed with foliar feeders such as seaweed and fish emulsion.

2. Prune the trees to be very open. Open trees let in more sun which kills the
disease spores. To give an idea how open peaches can be pruned, look at the
"after" picture on this link:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/johnston/homehort2/06_peach_pruning_demo.html

3. Regularly scout the trees for fruit with any sign of brown rot, and
remove that fruit from the orchard. This may not be possible on large trees;
its another reason to keep trees short!

4. Sprays that can be used include sulphur, Serenade, and Saf-T-Side oil (a
mineral oil with disease smothering abilities - it is thick like yogurt).
Don't just start spraying when you see the rot, do a delayed dormant (with
lime-sulphur), a post-bloom, and then later cover sprays. Don't spray oil
for two weeks after sulphur; sulphur can be sprayed 3-4 days after mineral
oil since the oil should have all evaporated in that time. Of these three I
have found sulphur to be the most effective, but none of them give strong
control.

I have used this approach for several years now and while I generally do
pretty well, I still have bad years on the susceptible varieties. Speaking
of varieties, I have removed the most susceptible varieties, that is another
important element of brown rot control. Your climate is not as severe as
mine for diseases so you may be able to control it on your existing varieties.

Scott

On Mar 22, 2012, at 1:58 PM, Caren Kirk wrote:

Last year I had brown rot on my cherries and plums for the first time.
I had not had any experience of brown rot before, so it took me a awhile
to identify it. However after doing so I was pretty meticulous about
removing mummies and trying to keep the areas around the trees as clean
as possible.

Can anyone suggest the best organic methods for controlling brown rot?
Last spring I just sprayed with dormant oil. I've heard sulfur can be
effective.

I'd really like to keep it under control, not only for my cherries and
plums but so it doesn't spread to my other stone fruit.

Thanks,

Caren Kirk
St. Jerome, QC
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