To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] plum curculio in cold and wet
Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 08:49:42 -0500
It seems to me that rain and cool weather slow the curculios down, but the
moment the sun comes out they set to work. That means not having Surround
on is not as big a deal during the actual downpour, but when it stops, the
Surround needs to be there for the few hours before another rain starts. I
don't have much hope of a plum crop here after last years' massive fruit
crops (in response to the previous years' across the board freezeout) so I
haven't sprayed Surround. It's been raining almost nonstop here since Mt
Redoubt went off, about 5 weeks now. I noted that plums were not bothered
too much till we got some warm dry weather for a day or two. I've been
picking off the stunted ones and pitching them in a bucket of water. I'm
thinking about spraying some seaweed on the tree to see if the others will
plump up really big. Japanese plums bloom too early here, but they get a
head start on the curculios and sometimes are fit to eat. The ones with
scars on the skin but no bug inside interest me most, but I suppose those
are simply feeding scars? Some are crescent shaped though. When I remove a
curculio scar with my fingernail from a green plum, sometimes the grub has
gone too deep to get it out, and the tiny line of brown it leaves is barely
visible. I know someone mentioned the grubs being squeezed to death in what
was it, pears? apples? I figure that if a plum was bred to chemically kill
the PC grubs, it would be bad for humans. But if it could outgrow the grub,
that would probably be good. Donna