June 3, 2010
I’ve made it to a couple of orchards this week and things look good! I do see more scars from plum curculio than I am used to seeing. I think this is because the plum curculio season was much more spread out than usual with the hot then cold then hot then cold weather we experienced. Don’t worry about the plum curculio scars now – you can hand thin and remove the scarred fruit if necessary. I haven’t seen any really fresh scars because plum curculio are finished for the year.

I did see a little bit of scab on leaves but not fruit. If it is easy to find scab in your orchard keep the trees protected with a fungicide such as Captan. If you do not see scab you can wait 2-3 weeks between fungicide applications, depending on what fungicides you used last. Captan is good for about two weeks, Captan plus Topsin M or Flint or Sovran is good for about three weeks. Of course if we get over two inches of rain the fungicide is considered washed off.

Will apple maggot flies be early this year as well as everything else? I will try to get some apple maggot fly traps set up next week.

I did see frost injury at another orchard today. This damage is from the frosts during the week of May 9th. Most of the damage fruit do not have the typical “frost ring”. Instead the damage fruit have vertical cracks – though not all the cracks are vertical. At first I thought the fruit had been bumped by the tractor, but I quickly realized it was frost damage. I’ve attached a picture of damaged fruit.

Our next and final twilight meeting is June 17 at Pippin Orchard at 5:30.

Feel free to call my new cell phone if you need me: 256-7438.

Next message will be sent Thursday June 10th.