(upbeat music)
- [Susan Poizner] In this episode of
The Urban Forestry Radio Show,
we're going to talk about one piece
of the fruit tree care puzzle.
And that's the use of
organic fruit tree sprays.
Now I know folks who would
just go to the garden center
and find a spray that
says "fruit tree spray."
And they might just use it whenever,
whether it's appropriate or not.
Even if it's organic misuse
of that spray may actually
damaged your tree, your health
and the environment too.
But in this show, we're going to get into
a little bit more detail.
You see most sprays are
only effective and safe
when you use them in the right conditions
and at certain times
in the growing season.
So we're going to talk about that today,
with Orchard Consultant Mike Biltonen.
(upbeat music)
So let's dive in to;
we're going to do this season by season
and for this first chunk of the show,
let's talk about the Dormant Season.
So, Mike, what does that mean?
When does the dormant season
begin for fruit trees?
And when does that end?
- [Mike Biltonen] Well as the
dormant season technically
begins at the end of a
current growing season,
so, as soon as a tree, the
fruits have been harvested
and leaves a fully defoliated
and all of this carbohydrate
reserved has gone
into the roots and the trunk
and the branches of that tree;
that tree is essentially
dormant at that point.
- [Susan Poizner] How are we
going to protect our trees
in the dormant season
and why is this a good
time to protect the trees?
So what would you say about that Mike?
- [Mike Biltonen] Well, just
like the trees are sleeping
and recovering during the winter
so are a lot of insects and
diseases in their own way.
They're going through a
dormant period of their own
and many of these insects and diseases
will do their winter
rest on the tree itself
and some examples of those
might be some mites or scales,
Willy Apple insects, some diseases,
particularly bacterial
diseases like Fire blights,
they will be residing on the tree itself.
And so we want to be aware of that,
and in order to reduce the pest pressure,
the disease inoculum
when the season starts,
there are some treatments
that we can apply,
that we need to think about;
that will help to reduce
the population say
of overwintering mite eggs
or overwintering scale
and by getting a jump on the season,
it reduces the potential
for those pests and diseases
to be bigger problems in season.
Then they would be if
we didn't do anything.
- [Susan pOizner] Give us a list of what
our options in the dormant season
and when would we opt for
those different choices.
- [Mike Biltonen] one of
the most classic options
is just a horticultural oil
and the horticultural oil would
be applied in a dilute spray
and by dilute I mean,
maybe one to 2% oil and water
and that would be applied to
the entire surface of the tree
and what the oil does is
it essentially smothers
the mite eggs or the scale
or the willy apple insects.
You can also add in
or include some other sprays
copper being one of them,
Lime sulphur would be another
and also neem oil and karanja
oil, which are seed oils
from trees in India have
also become very popular.
They act differently than
horticultural petroleum oils.
And they actually have some added benefits
for the health of the tree.
But, in the dormant season,
those are the basic options
that we're dealing with to help with
these overwintering, insect
and disease pressures.
- [Susan Poizner] So now
let's talk about blossom time.
Mike, how do we define
what blossom time is?
When it starts, when it ends?
And what should we be
spraying during blossom time?
- [Mike Biltonen] Well, so
blossom time to the flower itself
is developed in the previous seasons.
So the flowers that we're
going to see in a few months;
we're actually in it, we're
speaking about apples;
those flowers were
developed last June in July.
So they've been sitting in the tree,
benefiting from the growth,
they're going through their
dormant season right now.
And when the tree starts to grow,
that tissue will begin to differentiate
into the various flower parts.
Now if you have a compound microscope,
you can see this at the various stages,
but for your average,
backyard gardener orchardist,
you're really not going to
start to see the beginnings
of the flower until what
we call half inch green,
which is a phenological stage.
And at that stage, you can
start to see the flower really
begin to, to swell up and it
looks different from vegetative
buds which don't have any
flowers attached to them,
simply because it's
just bigger and pomper.
And the next stage after
that is going to be a stage
that we call tight cluster.
And at that point believes
has started to unfold
and the flower parts
have have pushed open.
Now it's still not a viable flower.
It can't be pollinated, you
can't begin to develop fruit
because it's not fully
different differentiated.
But depending on the weather,
that could be anywhere
from a week to two weeks
when we start to get the first
what we call open blossoms
and that's when the petals
and the sepals of the
flower start to open up.
And you can see the
pistol and the anthers,
which are the fruit
bearing and the pollen,
parts of the flower that are inside of it.
And at that point,
when you start to see
the flowers really open,
that's what we can call bloom time,
the beginning of bloom time,
that bloom period can last anywhere
from two and even up to three weeks long.
But once it's over, then the
flower will shed those petals.
And that period that phenological stage
is what we call petal fall.
And at that point, we can really
start to see the receptacle
and the the flower begin
to expand and we can see
the very first beginnings
of fruit development.
- [Susan Poizner] That's fantastic.
It's a perfect explanation
to help us understand
that we're looking at the
changes in the tree to decide
what to spray and when to spray.
So when those blossoms are open,
do we spray anything or
are they just too delicate
that we should just leave them alone
and say this is a no-spray zone?
- [Mike Biltonen] Yeah,
typically I'd like to say that,
it's best that you can
avoid spraying anything
because the flowers are delicate,
and if you spray the wrong thing
or spray the right
thing at the wrong time,
you can damages flowers and
really have a serious impact
on your ability to grow a crop of apples.
Now that said there are a
number of insects and diseases
that need to be considered
and the growers need to be
aware of because they can be
particularly masti
during the bloom period;
fire blight being one of
them, as we mentioned earlier,
that's when the tree is
at its peak susceptibility
for Fire blight.
Now there are conditions
that need to occur in order
for the tree to be
susceptible to Fire blight.
But nonetheless, it's one
that we need to be aware of.
An insect pests, probably
the most nefarious
is the European Apple Sawfly,
which can infest the flower,
the female lays the egg
at the base of the flower
right below the petals
and then you get this larval
development which kills it;
and then oriental fruit moth
can be another one though
it's not necessarily as serious
as as European Apple Sawfly.
So, if you can avoid
spraying things, that's best,
but you also need to be
aware that there are things
that can impact your Apple crop,
and you may need to spray
either right before full bloom,
or in the case of fire blight.
Sometimes you need to
spray during full bloom.
- [Susan Poizner] And
what would the option be
for fire blight if you know you've
got fire blight in your orchard?
Some of the trees have been hit.
You can see that it's going
to spread very easily perhaps
because the weather is
damp or windy or whatever.
What would you spray
on those open blossoms
to protect your trees from fire blight?
- [Mike Biltonen] Sure, well
there's a number of options.
Now we talked about copper during dormant,
there are copper sprays
you can apply during bloom,
but they're not the same
copper formulation that you
would use you would use
during the dormant season.
So they're going to be safer
to use against the flowers.
And the copper itself is a bacteriacide,
it helps to reduce the bacterium
that are on the surface
of the flower particularly
but on the plant overall,
and can reduce the
potential for infection.
Bonide makes a copper spray,
which is a copper
Octanoate a 10% solution.
And if you use according to label,
it can successfully reduce
your chances for getting Fire blight.
Another product that I like to use
and its the commercial
name is double nickel.
There are a variety of
off-the-shelf products.
But double nickel itself is a combination
of two bacillus organisms,
bacillus subtilis
otherwise known as serenade,
and bacillus amyloliquefaciens which is
known by a number of
different trade names,
but the interesting thing
even though it's a
considered to be a fungicide,
those two bacillus species
are bacterial suppressants.
So they may not kill the
bacteria outright in the way
that copper will, but
they'll reduce the ability
of that bacteria to grow and be successful
on the surface of the plant.
And so what I'd like to recommend
and what I usually do is that
if you've got a potential
for Fire blight infection,
is supply a light rate of copper
and a light rate of
these bacillus organisms
to help reduce the
arenaria bacteria that's
on the surface of the plant.
There's also some other
more biologically-driven
options that are out there
one is called blossom protect
and these are yeasts and
beneficial fungi which,
for all intensive purposes,
you're spraying onto the tree.
They'll grow just like any other type
of micro organism will,
but they're beneficial in that they
can act as bacterial
suppressants in some cases.
But they can also out
compete territorially,
on a surface of the plant
so that the arenaria
just doesn't have a chance to
ever grow to any dangerous levels.
- [Mike Biltonen] So
now, I would say Mike,
we have about seven minutes left.
So let's talk about summer sprays.
When we're talking about
summer sprays,this is when
you've got leaves on the tree,
the fruit is starting to form.
Can you give me a list
of a few of the sprays
that people might consider
at that time of year?
- [Mike Biltonen] Sure.
So just to frame it a little
bit the first 10 to 12 weeks
of the season, so from
Dormant until Petal Fall
Or when we're seeing
everything start to waken up
and be present in the orchard
after petal fall
and during those initial
fruits growth stages is
when we're starting to see
more of the summer insects
and diseases that come out.
Now, they're going to be different
than the early season insects, diseases,
some will be the same.
But the intensity from
an organic standpoint
tends to go down a little bit.
So you need to be vigilant,
but it goes down a little bit.
And you can be fairly
regimented in your approach.
I already mentioned granulosis
is for coddling moth.
That's one product that can be used DiPel
or any Bacillus thuringiensis product
can be used to help control
other larval organisms
like a bito black Bean and leafroller,
green fruit worms Oriental fruit moths,
codling moth to some degree
and then there's also entrust
or a Spinoza insecticide,
which is also an important
part of that overall rotation.
And I think when those are used
in conjunction with a kaolin
clay product like Surround,
they can provide a very
robust insect control program
and keep everything at fairly low levels.
When you get later into
the season and again,
depending on where you are,
it could be mid July early
August, you're going to
see something come out
called Apple maggot fly.
And those can be controlled organically
using Red sticky spheres and lures
and just trapping them out.
But in thrust or a Spinoza insecticide
and Surround will also keep
any potential Apple maggot
problems at a at a fairly low level.
One final product that's out there
is the pyrethrums or pyrethroids pyogenes,
is probably the most common or popular
the organic pyrethroid
products that are out there,
they tend not to be as
powerful as spinosus.
But if you use them in a
rotational perspective,
they can also provide a
lot of protection against
some insect pests, aphids,
leafhoppers, that kind of stuff.
And then from a disease
control standpoint,
unless there's specific issues
that somebody is dealing with,
again I go back to the bacillus
products plus a copper,
every 10 to 14 days
throughout the growing season
just to provide some fungal protection.
- [Mike Biltonen] That was
Orchard consultant, Mike Biltonen
of Know Your Roots in
Finger Lakes, New York.
(upbeat music)
