Season 6, Episode 19: How Growers Beat Rain, Rot, And Risk For A Strong Apple Year

Don, Kari, Shan, and Greg unpack the season’s rollercoaster: a soggy May that drove scab, rust, and bitter rot risk, followed by a dry, color‑rich harvest window. We lay out infection windows, what worked for Honeycrisp, why alternate row coverage backfired, and how to prep smarter for next season.

Photo Credit: Lindsay Brown, Penn State

Music Credit: “The Raven and the Swan” by Josh Woodward is licensed under a Attribution 3.0 United States License. Courtesy of FreeMusicArchive.org

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Flight Seasonalities of Main Fruit Pests During the Growing Season

Transcript

Welcome And Season Framing

End-Of-Season Disease Defense

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Alright, welcome back once again, everybody. I'm Don Siefert. It's the Dr. Tree Fruit and Don podcast. I'm here with Dr. Carrie Peter. Say hi, Carrie. Hello, hello. Dr. Greg Krawchak, say hi, Greg. Hello, everyone. And Dr. Sean Kumar. Say hi, Sean. Hello, everyone. So it is uh Thursday, November 13th. Uh it's pretty late in the game, pretty late in the season. Uh, but Carrie still managed to get out a disease alert last week. So um Carrie, if you want to go first, uh we'll we'll let you talk about that a little bit.

Sanitation And Urea Tactics

Peach Leaf Curl Timing

SPEAKER_00 0:44

I I pretty much update the same disease update for this time of year every single year. So, because I know for some people it may be the first time they're seeing it or it's a healthy review or friendly reminder. So, you know, I always like telling people that, you know, your your best offense is a good defense. And when it comes to defense for plant diseases, starting early, as soon as the season ends, it's start thinking about disease management for the following year. So uh in the update, I'm just gently reminding people about some key diseases they need to keep in mind with regards to uh potentially start cleaning up uh the inoculum, um the fungal spores and the bacteria that's out there, uh, because this was a tough year for all the diseases that um could possibly land on our doorstep. So the first thing to be thinking about is sanitation. So sanitation meaning getting rid of the old leaves that have fallen, fruitlets that may be still hanging in the trees, fruitlets on the ground, old dead wood as you start pruning, because I know pruning of apple trees is very much underway. Uh so as a reminder, you can use urea and it's still okay. You can use your urea right now. You could use it a week from now, two weeks from now, as the leaves are falling when the leaves are already falling off. So the the idea with urea is you're using um a 5% solution. So it's 40 pounds of feed grade urea and 100 gallons of water, and you're spraying 100 gallons to the acre. Now, if you can't get your hands on feed grade urea, you want to make sure that your nitrogen comes from an ammonium source. Uh, it will still do the same job. So, what does this urea spray do? What it's doing is that it's going to be kind of coating the leaves and coating old plant tissue and encouraging the good microbes to help break it down even faster. And if you throw in a little leaf chopping or flail mowing in there, that's going to break down the tissue even more. Because for the majority, if not all of our diseases, they need an overwintering source and overwintering tissue in order to survive next year. It's the case for apple scab, it's the case for marcinina blots, it's the case for fire blight, cherry leaf spot. Um, so in order to decrease that chance of those spores surviving the winter, you want to get rid of their overwintering source. So that's what the urea is doing. Um, it can be sprayed on the ground to help degrade stuff. It can be sprayed on the leaves right now as the leaves are falling. So I really highly recommend folks to consider this, especially if they've may have had a tough year because of just how crazy it was this year. We had constant rain, and I know some people uh struggled with regards to keeping sprays on and disease broke through and fungicides just they were tough to keep on the trees. Uh one thing to be thinking about right now, also, as the leaves are falling off your peach trees, is your peach leaf curl spray. This was a good year for peach leaf curl. Um, but you need to wait till all the leaves are off the tree. Uh, so I had a discussion with our farm manager today. I said, where are we at with our peach trees? He says, we're about 80% defoliation. I said, you need to wait a little longer because anything that is um still on the tree, it's covering the bud scales, and it's the bud scales where the peach leaf curl spores hang out. And that's the only time you can treat for peach leaf curl is when all the leaves are off the tree. So if you don't get to it right now, you can wait until uh late winter before any bud swell occurs. You could wait until then. It doesn't have to be done right now. Copper, chlorothalinyl, xyram is still available, so you can still use xyram. So any kind of broad spectrum fungicide will um, pun intended, nip it in the bud and nip the disease in the bud. So, and then the last thing I just want to mention um to folks is your weather station. Um, don't forget to give your weather station some love. Go check it out. If you are connected to NUA, go check new to see if all your sensors are working. Um, I know for a fact our wind speed sensor is not working. As it worked for a year, the new sensor is sitting on in my office. So that is something definitely we'll make sure that we'll be doing this year is changing out that wind speed sensor. Um, check out to make sure that everything is functioning clean, clean out the the rain gauge. Um, just give it a little love in order to uh make sure that it's being properly maintained so you can it's usable. Uh so that's just another um quick reminder. As far as weather station maintenance, uh go to the company that is your weather station to get the uh you know, to get the details of how to properly maintain it with some of these weather stations. I know that um you may not be able to replace parts yourselves. You would actually have to send the weather station back to the company. Um, if you're still uncertain about weather station maintenance, there's lots of YouTube videos out there too. But the point is that weather stations, it's just not a one and done. You put it up and you walk away. You really do have to keep tabs on it and maintain it and make sure that everything is properly functioning. Um, so in order for you in order for you to be able to utilize the the tools that it provides, especially with NUA and all the models that it's connected to. So that is um my little spiel for end of season um disease management and also I should say beginning of 2026 season disease management. So one thing we wanted to do um in this uh kind of last wrap-up episode for the 2025 season is that we wanted to do sort of a post-mortem or a debrief on what happened this year. Uh, where were the problems? Where could have we done better? Where could have um where could have things snuck in that we didn't anticipate? And how could we possibly prepare better for the future? So um, so first of all, we started off. Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I have green tip being about mid-March for us in Adams County. It's roughly about March 18th-ish. So it was kind of cool. I mean, it was it we didn't have really these spikes of warm-up, but we did have a freeze, frost, pretty major in the beginning of April. And I know that really affected a lot of folks because I know it it really took out some of your uh some of your varieties in Rock Springs, right? Right right, Sean.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

Oh, yes, yeah. It took out some and it took out a lot of uh peaches, peach varieties too in southern Adams County. And even in southern Adams County, it took out a lot of the uh apple blooms too, like very southern part. I think the mid and upper atoms escaped a lot of it for Apple, but the southern atoms got hit quite bad for uh apples too.

Weather Station Maintenance

Season Post‑Mortem Setup

Frost, Bloom, And Crop Resilience

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah, and I I didn't know that notice that too because my pink ladies king blooms were were singed, but there were plenty of laterals to do what I needed to do for my fire blade trial. But I did notice that that it seemed that anything that was really puffy and kings are about to bloom were were affected. But even with that, it didn't seem to negatively affect the crop as a whole in the state. Um, there were pockets of issues, but overall, the word on the street is everyone's very, very pleased with uh the apple crop this year, despite the major hiccups and twists and turns and curveballs that seem to throw, be thrown at us at every which way but the highway. And so um, but that that was pleasantly surprising. So uh I guess that's something that I've always been um marveled by that, you know, sometimes we have these major spring frosts, but they they put a dent, but not too bad of a dent, um, into the crop. Uh and so one thing I think for for any newbies that are listening, um, or just sort of casual listeners, you know, apple trees and peach trees produce what, a thousand, eleven hundred percent more blossoms than are necessary, and that we have to go in and physically or chemically remove the crop in order to have a decent crop with regards to size and color and everything like that. So I think that's one thing, you know, it's almost like Mother Nature built insurance um into the trees with regards to having so many blossoms, potential blossoms available, and they aren't all opening at the same time. So that also offers a little bit of insurance. So um, but so we had that little blip, but no sooner did that blip occur than the heat come in, and uh it was about mid-April when it just the heat exploded and everything just went to bloom here in Adams County. So Don, I'm not quite sure. I think you guys may have been a few days after that. This was like around April 18th. Um, I'm not sure if it was Easter weekend. I feel like it might have been Easter weekend because my fire blight stuff always seems to happen around Easter weekend. So um, so it, so it the the warmth came in and it pretty much stayed put um some to some degree. And it was dry during April, and we had uh definitely a lot of good powdery mildew days, even though there was some rain events where it was a little tricky with Fireblight. Um, but I will say that our early meetings had started at the end of April, and I saw a lot of powdery mildew issues on the shoots, the primary powdery mildew with um honey crisp. And so I knew I was like, oh, this is going to be a good powdery mildew year. But uh those thoughts quickly dissipated uh come May 1st or May 2nd, and it started to rain and it didn't quit. And so um, between the warmth and the rain, uh, you name it, the diseases um definitely got a strong foothold in the month of May. So uh for for uh for at least down here in Adams County, um I've had I've I've been going through the data of our my harvest data. I had about 100% infection on fruit for apple scab. It's been a while since I've seen that. Uh we had about 30% infection on the leaves when we rated in June. Rust was alarmingly high. I I'm amazed how if you plant cedar trees, rust galls will come. Who'd have thought? So I had about uh 30% infection of leaves with rust. I've never had it that high, um, which is good. It I've been able to really tease out some alternatives in some of the um programs. Um uh and also um the secondary powdery mildew still was a problem, even though I mean primary powdery primary powdery mildew took a foothold in April, and that was enough to sort of keep things going with the secondary powdery mildew, which wasn't so problematic, but it definitely was showing up in all the orchards, even in varieties that normally historically um were like gala, where powdery mildew isn't a problem. But I will say something interesting that um I noticed when we were raiding in June is how far the scab infections persisted on the shoot. Because how we rate our product trials is I take 10 terminal shoots and we count all the leaves for the total number of leaves, and we count incidents as far as how many leaves have scab, how many leaves of powder mildew, how many leaves have rust. And I was amazed at how how much of the shoot was infected with scab. And usually in an average year, I don't see that. I may see like half the shoot is affected with scab. Not this year. I mean, it was wet for so long that just about all the leaves on many of um, like especially the untreated, we saw scab well for a very long time. So with that said, I put my little um public service announcement. If you saw scab this year and you were using alternate row middle spray, this was the year to not use alternate row middle spray to control for apple scab because the the infection events were so frequent. And to stay up on it, you really had to you're just about to be spraying all the time if you're doing alternate row middle spray. So, so okay, so um the other disease in question that was also excellent this year that landed in May was Marcenina. So, Marcenina, the spores come in at uh uh let me think around petal fall, right after apple scab. And it likes warm temperatures. And we were averaging in the upper 60s um during that about third, fourth week in May, and it was wet. It was chronically wet during that time, and Marcenina just exploded. I saw it everywhere. I saw it in varieties I wouldn't expect to see. And I actually saw the first instance of Marcenina, my untreated in mid-June, which is a month earlier than what I normally see. Uh and so, and I saw it persist well into this fall. I was driving around and looking at my research orchards. I was like, what are all these spots? What are all these spots? And when I looked at them under the scope, it was all Marcenina. Uh, so this was definitely uh a good foliar year for foliar diseases, a lot of stuff out there. Uh and so, okay, so we're coming up through end of May. So I don't want to monopolize the whole debrief conversation. So just curious as far as like from Bud Break through May, what what folks, um Sean and Greg, what you saw with regards to um horticultural stuff, Sean, with regards to thinning windows, because I've I've heard a lot of positive feedback from people who are really thrilled with their thinning this year. And Greg, I know um insects, they're you know, they're they're tied to temperature. So I'm just curious as far as how this year's temperature was affecting the insects. It's because we're we're through the end of May now. Because I'll pause at the end of May. Because I we definitely will cover bitter rot in the rest of the season. So, Sean, do you want to give some your thoughts up from bud break through the end of May?

April Heat, Mildew, And May Rains

SPEAKER_04 15:09

Uh sure. Uh thanks, Carrie. So, yeah, we came into the season with a somewhat of a uh cold shock on the end of January. I think at the end of January this year, we had like a really cold day, and uh that could have potentially caused some damage. We didn't uh really uh check. We checked our peaches, and I know that we had some 20 to 30 percent damage just from that winter day in uh late January. Uh and so we uh started off with that, and then of course, Kerry, you mentioned uh that uh that frost we had. And uh despite that, you know, overall I agree with you that we seem to have uh a great crop. Uh both in 2024 and 2025, we have had two very good carbohydrate deficits during the fruitless thinning window. So we've had uh two good windows, actually, both in 2024 and 2025 for fruitless thinning. And so with fruitless thinning, we have done quite well, I think, the past two years for the ability of growers to thin with the carbohydrate deficits. And then uh unlike what we had in 23, which was uh in 23, uh we had very cool temperatures and we didn't really have a great thinning window, which is we can very clearly see in the carbohydrate deficit uh thinning model out of uh NIOA. And so uh I think that we had a very good thinning window. We did have a lot of rain, too much rain, I would say, in April and May. And so what that did is that if you followed your regular uh nutritional practices, for example, you put in the amount of nitrogen you're putting in, you're putting in the amount of potassium you're putting in, like usual based on your soil and leaf tests. What that does is when you have a lot of rainfall, you have more nitrogen that's taken in when you have more rainfall, even with the same amount of nitrogen that you're putting in. So the nitrogen uptake really increases. And you might have noticed that in your trees where some of some of your orchards might have had like excessive vegetative growth over uh the season, especially if you have if you'd have seen them in June or July. Uh especially in blocks that had a lighter crop load. For example, in uh Fuji, I know that there's a bunch of blocks in Adams County, a few in Berks and elsewhere that had a very light crop load coming into the season. And uh so with those sort of light bloom uh blocks and with the amount of rain we had, I think we had a lot of nitrogen uptake and the trees grew uh very big. And so they might have needed some summer pruning or some uh and some uh some vigor control measure. And so that that's what makes me think, Carrie, that uh spring uh apogee or something uh for those kind of blocks might have been really good, not only for the disease, but also for the uh horticultural aspects of uh not having them become like too big and uh just because of the amount of rain we've had.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Well, that's something also that to keep in mind for future years, because we had in Adams County, we had over nine inches of rain in May, and then we had uh four and a half inches in June. So, I mean, this is something probably we want to kind of keep in the back of our mind, and as people are listening, keep in the back of your mind too, um, moving forward during those those really key months that apogeme will help with fire blight, and they'll also help kind of tame tame the craziness of the growth as a result of that rain.

Thinning Windows And Nutrition

SPEAKER_04 19:02

Yeah. The other thing I quickly wanted to mention was in the early season, especially, I think it'll be important for people to keep track or keep note in the winter of when you have temperatures that go below like the sort of thresholds for apples. Uh, that's anywhere like uh 15 Fahrenheit or lower. And for peaches, that's uh I think uh less than 20 Fahrenheit, even during the winter. So I'm talking about the winter because there's been new research coming out of Michigan State from uh Dr. Todd Einhorn's lab that kind of shows that the kings of apples are actually uh more susceptible than the uh laterals, even at dormancy. So even when the buds are dormant, when the buds are uh basically they look the same, right? And they have gone past their endodormancy, meaning that they've gone past the number of chill hours that they need uh in order to bloom and they're just waiting for the right temperatures to bloom. So in Pennsylvania, for us, that's somewhere like early January, where we are done with our chill hour satisfaction. And so after that, the buds are dormant and they're waiting for the right opportunity to open. That's when we have issues with, you know, in February, if you have very hot weather, we worry about the blossoms opening. And so at that time, what their lab has found is that the king blooms, king buds, even at that stage, uh, is more susceptible to a cold than uh to a cold event than the laterals, and they have higher thresholds. And so they're still working on it and they'll come up with thresholds and stuff in the next few years. But that's something to keep note of. For example, if you have a cold day, even reaching to 20 Fahrenheit or less than 20, uh, you might want to think if you have cold protection measures like frost fans or things like that, it might be worthwhile to switch it on uh to protect your kings because your kings are going to give you the uh the biggest size of fruit, uh, no matter what you do. And so if you lose your kings, of course, yes, you do have laterals, but then uh you you might have to work harder on fruit size. And especially if you have a fall like what we had with very dry fall, uh, they might not give you the size. So I think that that's just something to keep note of. In the coming winter, if you see a cold day and if it's close to the thresholds of causing damage, then it might be worth, and it's a radiative frost, it might be worth to switch on your frost fans, switch on your uh uh windmill, wind, wind equipment and all that to sort of reduce that damage to the kings, even when the buds are dormant. So this is just about uh when the buds are dormant, and you might not see that there's a difference, but there is a difference, like the kings are more susceptible. But this is very interesting work from uh uh Michigan State. And yeah, that's all I had. I think after that wet, uh we had very wet April and May, and then I'll stop there because I think we will continue again after.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Sean. Okay, Greg, um, so your thoughts from the time of bud break till the end of May, beginning of June, with regards to insects, anything interesting trends, um business as usual, anything to anything that tickled your fancy this year in the early season?

Managing Vigor In Wet Years

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Thank you, Katie. Uh well, uh listening to Katie and to Sean, I was thinking about it that really talking about insects is different than talking about diseases and all the tree growth. I mean, we are much more orchard dependent. The differences for the growers in insect pressure or insect occurrence absence is more localized. It really can vary from grower to grower. And when plant pathologists are talking about diseases, you know, the assumption is well, if it's raining, everyone is dealing with the same problem. With insects, it does not. Because I mean, it doesn't matter. I mean, the weather, of course, and Kerry already mentioned this, the weather is the major factor influencing insect development, but the difference is they don't develop if they are not in the orchard. So that's a very simple, simple statement. So with this in mind, uh I can make some comments about what we have seen here at Freck, where we are trying actually to have all the insects possible because we just want to look at them and do our study on them. So um for us from the insect perspective, yes, the season started earlier. It was you know probably the earliest codling move bioface we had on the record. We had coddling move flying on April 28. Uh we have Red Bandit flying in March, which was you know a little bit shocking. However, as the season goes, and even this early season goes, the mother nature took care of those uh uniqueness, and basically I would say that we had a very normal season from then on. I mean, you know, our oblique bandit leaf roller, which usually coming after the bloom of apples two, three weeks. I mean, we had it in the end of May, which is you know about when it's supposed to be. So again, the weather is influencing insect development, was influencing, but there was nothing really unique for the 2025 season. And again, saying this, please remember that your particular situation might differ. And I know that some of you were really very, very absorbed dealing with the scale. You had San Jose scale, you had well not you, the trees had were infested with San Jose scale, the trees were infested, especially peach trees with white peach scale. There were issues with the borders, but again, it was not on the state base, it was on the orchard base. So this thing varies from orchard to orchard. We started earlier, as the season goes on, we kind of level off, and we had a relatively normal season as we go. Okay, let me stop here, and then uh we we might we might talk later on uh you know what to do from now on before next season starts. But this will be probably near the end after we go through the season with the diseases and all the heart issues. So Kerry, thank you.

Winter Cold Risk To King Buds

Early Insect Flights And Local Pressure

Scale, Rollers, And Orchard Variability

Bitter Rot Triggers And Spray Windows

SPEAKER_00 26:42

All right, thank yeah, thanks, Greg, and Sean for um for your observations and and two cents about the early part of the season. So so now let's cover from June through harvest. So um really uh so one thing that I want to bring up, and I know I think I've mentioned this on previous podcasts. Let's talk about bitter rot and honey crisp because I know a lot of people struggled with bitter rot with honey crisp this year. And you know who didn't struggle? Freck didn't struggle. We had amazing honey crisps that were disease-free. Uh, and I'm considering writing a little article as far as what we did this year. I really and I got out disease updates and alerted folks, but the question is, is I, you know, you give all the people information, but it's up to them as far as how what they do with it. So we had some significant infection events, um, possibly as early as late May this year. Uh I kind of did a real deep dive into the weather data uh for around here in Adams County. And so there was possible, I I'm not like 100%, but there could have been a possible infection event, May 15th through the 17th, where again the temperatures were in the mid to high 70s. We had at least 12 hours of wetness. That's how I digested the weather data, and that's what I was looking for. The next one was May 30th, uh, as far as another possible infection, but the infection event that I know nailed everyone with 100% certainty is June 6th, 7th, and 9th through the 10th. This was a terrible, terrible infection period. We had during this time frame over two inches of rain and it was hot. And I think this is possibly the one where people got stuck with regards to infections. Because I know some people were saying, I've been spraying, you know, every week for six weeks. And I said, that doesn't take it to that infection time that was in the beginning of June. Uh, and so uh, but we here at Freck, I mean, we were spraying, I was paying attention to the weather and how much rain was falling in between sprays. And this was a tough year where we had one to two inches falling in between between sprays. So we were not spraying every 14 days, it was every seven to ten days, even during our covers. And so um, you know, this was a challenge, definitely a challenge for folks. And it was an expensive challenge too. So something that I definitely don't want to um to kind of understate is how much this was expensive. This was a very expensive year to manage diseases in the orchard based on how much rain we got and the temperatures and the disease conditions. And and Greg will tell you how much we spent on fungicides this year. And that was with donations from some chemical companies in order to keep things in check. Um, but after June 10th, it pretty much was all downhill from there. I mean, everyone should have been in bitter rot mode, but it may have been too late. So it's really those early season infection events. That I think that caught people. And I've been trying to pound the drum with regards to telling folks to make sure that they are paying attention to those conditions beginning in late May. And this was a year where that was the case. And that was the case last year too. And it caught me off guard last year. We saw bitter rot symptoms as early as the week of field day. So that was the last, the last full week of June. So that was early. And so it just shows you just how favorable the conditions were for bitter rot this year. So what I recommend to people who are listening, if you struggle with bitter rot on your honey crisp this year, go back and see how you sprayed around May 15th, 17th, May 30th, and June 6th through the 10th. If you were spraying alternate row middle spray, ask yourself, okay, how naked was that other half of the tree? How many days was that other half of the tree naked? Because this is may where you may have been caught. So that's just sort of a that's going to have to be a post-mortem on your part to go back and look at your records. Another interesting thing that I noticed this year that was different for us, but we did notice it late last year, is I saw apple scab come back up again in the late latter half of the season. We, when we were evaluating fruit, especially in Golden Delicious, we saw these little black spots all over fruit. And I was like, what is this? I was like, I don't know if this is apple scab. It's so tiny, it's so, you know, it's it's like it was pinpoint, you know, pinpoint scab. Well, it turns out it was all apple scab. So this is another thing to be mindful of is that for a year like this, where it was um so rainy for so many months that your any kind of apple scab that got established will continue establishing on your fruit. And uh you may not be used to seeing sort of this little pinprick, pinpoint um lesions, and this was all apple scab. And that's something else we'll be talking about this winter is storage scab because we had really good rain events last year that triggered a lot of pinpoint scab issues that did not manifest until they'd been in storage. And this caught a lot of packers and a lot of growers off guard. So that's something we would definitely review. But turns out pinpoint scab can occur in the season as well. So um sooty blotchum fly spec. Wow, it was explosive this year. 100% infection on everything we rated. It was crazy, and same for the rots, too. The rots had good conditions this year, um, in addition to a bit of rot to get established. We had a little bit of everything out there this year and and pushing from 16 to 20 percent incidence on my untreated water controls. And so to me, this was a banner year for all the diseases that we saw. Um, and so um, but one thing I am concerned about is because of how wet it was this year, uh, what's going to show up in storage this winter? Uh, and and so that's something I just sort of want to kind of put that on people's minds to be thinking about because the majority of the rots we deal with all have a significant latent period, and we do not know the timing of that latent period. So um this is something that I just want people to be alert about. Um, but I will say something that's in our favor is how dry. So basically it rained through the end of July and then the spigots turned off. You know, we only had, I think, like not even two inches of rain in August here in Adams County. And it was fairly dry in September, and it was fairly dry in October. So it was an amazing season for harvesting because you could be out there just about every single day without any issues. So I am I am cautiously heartened by those conditions, and maybe things won't be as bad, and maybe whatever showed up showed up already and kind of dropped to the ground and won't be problematic. But regardless, I want folks just to be um mindful of that. And then the last thing, disease-wise, that I I want to bring up. Um well, I should say I didn't really talk much about stone fruit. Brown rot wasn't, I didn't see much brown rot this year, despite how wet it was. Um, and bacterial spot was problematic, especially on some susceptible varieties. I saw symptoms um on apricots and some vulnerable peaches as early as late May. Um so it definitely was a back spot year for many people. Um, but overall, up you know, rusty spot was problematic too. I mean, we had good conditions for that as well. Um but the last thing I just want to mention um outside of the stone fruit is southern blight of apple. So um, for those of you in Adams County, it is still very much alive and well here. I've not heard reports of Southern Blight outside of Adams County, but I still want to keep people on alert. Where you will see Southern Blight first is on Bud 9 and Bud 10 and M9. Those are very, very vulnerable rootstocks. Um, uh, I just recently visited an orchard, maybe about less than a month ago, um, and the grower had done everything right in this orchard. I mean, they cover cropped it, they made soil testing to make sure that the pH was right, they put lime down, but Southern Blight was still showing up. So, one thing to be aware of with Southern Blight is that it likes acidic soils. It will thrive in acidic soils. We're talking about around pH 5, 5.5, and we don't really see it in orchards where the soil is more neutral. So we are seeing it in orchards where the average pH is close to seven. So now I'm going back to these orchards. And this includes Freck, Freck is not immune, and individually soil testing those affected rows and maybe those affected trees, just to see that possibly, you know, we may need to be a little more aggressive with fine-tuning our soil pH when we have these affected areas. Um, and so, and the other thing to note is that when you do lime, the pH is a gradual increase. So you may not get that the right pH immediately. Uh, so so yes, and there we I am working on a project right now with FMC to hope hopefully to get the product rhyme, which is flutriafol, to get a supplemental label because they've already done all the heavy lifting and extra experimentation that's necessary for soil applications of rhyme. So I have experiments in progress right now, and I will say that is showing a lot of promise. So hopefully this time next year we will have something legal to be able to use to apply to trees regardless of stage. So that is just a quick update about Southern Blight. And I will say, even though it was so dry the last few months, it still showed up because we had conditions in the first part of the season, and you know, it was um it was a good year, another good year for Southern Blight, unfortunately. So, but um, so that is it for me as far as my debrief about diseases. So I will let Sean turn shurn things over to Sean to talk about the summer season and also harvest, because I know there's a lot of positive things to talk about harvest this year, and then we'll we'll conclude with Greg, where he can um wrap things up and then finally give uh two cents about what should people should be thinking about next year for insects. So go ahead, Sean.

Scab, Sooty Blotch, And Storage Risks

Southern Blight Updates And Soil pH

SPEAKER_04 37:42

Yeah. So continuing off from uh where we left off in May, and then like Carrie mentioned, uh we have had uh very little rainfall uh in August and September, uh, which was not the case in previous seasons. And so for people who had thinning uh that went very well, I think that it was fine because uh despite that, I think the fruits were able to reach their fruit size. Uh but for folks uh who uh had uh who had a lot more fruit left over after thinning, I think they were hit a little bit hard, especially with the lack of uh water, and especially if those blocks were not irrigated. Uh, then that really affected fruit size because uh of the double whammy of like having too much fruit on the tree, but also uh not having water. But we had one of the best coloring seasons in Pennsylvania in the past five to seven years. Uh, amazing uh color on the honey crisp, like Carrie mentioned at Freck, uh the honey crisp block that we were working on. Beautiful, beautiful apples. And I think the early season apples that we had, Agala Honeycrisp, I think that they had some of the best color that we have had in Pennsylvania in a long time. Uh, not the best year to be doing color trials, I will say that. But that is very small uh compared to uh how good of a color we had uh overall this season because of the cool weather. Uh and uh we do not really see any significant effects of the different nutrient treatments that we tried for improving color as compared to the control. Um and so I think that uh going forward that we might have to look at the weather forecast, however right or wrong that could be, and then decide on whether we need to apply color enhancing techniques in in August. Because sometimes if we had such good weather like what we've had this year, uh those you can save on those products by not using them because uh they didn't seem to have any additional effect on color. And I'll we'll be continuing these experiments next year to try to see if uh, you know, in case we get a bad year, uh, whether these products help in improving uh color. But so far this year, we haven't seen any uh positive effects of any of these nutrient type products that I know a lot of our growers are using them, but if the weather seems very cool and you have good uh and that is especially the differential between the night and day, you have about 15 to 20 degrees differential and you have temperatures in the 60s, then it might not be uh it might be a good idea to not use any of those uh treatments. Of course, uh the X10 day, the reflective fabric, that always helps to improve color. And so that's a different leak by itself. We all know that it works, but we none of us want to use it really because of the effort and time it takes to lay it out and then labor and all of that, packing it back up, having a place to store it. But that has shown to improve color, even in a good coloring year like this, it still has its benefits. And so uh, so the other thing I wanted to mention was uh fruit size was uh an issue, especially in unirrigated blocks, especially uh the early varieties in August and uh September. Uh, if you had uh uh if you did not get enough fruit off of the tree off of the tree during thinning, then uh fruit size was uh an issue. And then, but overall, I think we had a really good season with uh good yields and uh a good crop in PA overall. Uh and I would like to say that the retain applications they worked very well for Gala and HoneyCrisp. So we had blocks in Adams County where we were doing our ripening updates, and we saw that the retain, gala-retained uh honeycrisp, they worked as they were supposed to work. And so for the Honey Crisp, the application of retain was about three to four weeks before anticipated harvest. For Gala, it was a little bit closer, two to three weeks before anticipated harvest. And both of them, I think retained work very well. I've heard mixed reports of retain working and not working in some of the later varieties, uh, like red uh uh reds, goals and some of the later varieties. I've had I've heard some mixed reports. We actually didn't uh uh look at them in as in as much detail as we did Honey Crisp and Gala. So that's something that we might look at next year. But I've heard variable reports about retaining working or not working for some of these later varieties that we uh that uh that we grow. Uh then what else about the season? I think that uh uh we I did not particularly see any strong bit of pit uh effects this year. I think that uh for for blocks with low crop load, uh it was very hard because if you had a low low crop to begin with, then uh because of all the water you have uh uh in the season, especially earlier, you had more potassium uptake as compared to calcium. So the only way to replenish that calcium was by regular spraying. And so, but if you started with the low crop load, that makes the block just much more susceptible to bitapit. And so if you had low crop loads, then this was a year where yes, you could have seen uh more bitapit in your orchard. But if you started with the right crop load uh or the right uh fruit set and crop load, then I think that we had it was fine. Uh the season was quite good for honeycrist and gala. Uh, I know that as far as uh the later varieties are concerned, I think we're coming close to most of you must have harvested uh all of your blocks by now. Pink Lady, I think was harvested last week or uh moving into this week. And so as you think about post-harvest nutrition, I think that uh I agree with Kerry that uh a post-harvest urea application, I think that uh 3%, 4% urea applications would be good, especially because uh uh they help with increasing uh the nutrition of the tree, but not uh advancing growth at this time. So it has to be applied usually post-harvest, right after harvest, usually like a week or two uh after harvest, and for the late varieties, immediately after harvest. Uh and that uh that uh helps with nutrition and growth. The other nutrients to think about is also boron and zinc. Uh boron as a regular uh application, I think it's a nice split application. Like you can do part of your application in the fall, uh something like soluble borax, and then uh you can do a spring application of boron as well. Uh and then zinc if you have any deficiency, or if you think that uh you do like yearly or bi-yearly sprays of zinc, that's another nutrient to uh four year spray uh post-harvest as well. You want to make sure that the leaves are still working. So now it might be too late for many varieties, but uh this recommendation is just for after post-harvest, and it must be clear that the trees, uh the leaves are still intact, and uh that is when that's the right time to really spray for post-harvest folia nutrition. And anything else, Don, did you notice anything else with like the fruit maturity stuff that you were doing?

SPEAKER_03 45:39

Uh maturity was a little all over the place this year. Uh some stuff fell a little out of sequence, uh, where folks most folks expected it. Um which throws a bit of a wrench when it comes into labor management, right? Um, I know we don't talk about that too much here on the podcast just because you know we have a pathologist and an entomologist and a horticulturist, and we don't have anyone that does like labor and uh all that sort of good stuff. Um but um I I know that was a concern out my way where guys folks were like uh okay, well now I gotta move folks around to this, and I really hadn't planned on this. Um so that was that was a concern this year. Um so it's something to consider for future years. But that said, I don't know how you would possibly ever plan for that when it comes to like writing your H2A contracts or that sort of thing. Um so it's it's one of those kind of struggles that um boy, I'm glad I just have to I just have to deal with the trees themselves and I don't gotta do all the all the number stuff on the back end.

SPEAKER_04 46:49

No, that's a very good point, uh, Don, especially that we are noticing that the early varieties are earlier and the later varieties are later. Those so there's that good two weeks of gap, I think, between like when you finish up uh Gala and Honey Crisp, and then when you get to your goals and reds, reds and goals. And so uh we are noticing that gap more and more, especially last two years. I mean, even last year was very early, and this year was quite kind of early as well. I would say not as early as last year, but still a week early from uh, I mean, if there's anything called normal. Uh so uh so we we are noticing that gap. I've seen that some growers have sort of uh uh move to uh sometimes uh even do some uh especially some pruning, but also move to the packing house if they have one to sort of repurpose uh those uh H1B workers. But it is a challenge in terms of like there is that gap in in production. And uh uh let's see if any particular variety that grows in the next few years to try to sort of uh fill that gap. Because selecting a variety to fill that gap is also like a big gamble because it's like you never know which variety is going to thrive or uh do well. And yeah, overall, I think we had good fruit. That's all uh I have to say. And I think we had an overall very good year for both apples and peaches. I think peaches we had really good prices. Apples uh are it's a good season. Uh I'm we're not still sure about price-wise, but for production wise, it was a great season for apples as well.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

At Freck, uh, things were a little early for us. So we were, it was definitely kind of an interesting season when it came to harvest. So, but yeah. So thanks, Sean. Appreciate that update and overview and post-mortem of um the horticultural aspects of the latter half of the season. So, Greg, okay, your thoughts. Latter half of the season, and then what growers should be thinking about moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 49:03

Exactly the same as I don't know. It was a normal season, it was a good season.

Color, Size, And Late‑Season Practices

Labor Timing And Harvest Gaps

Insect Wrap‑Up And Winter Scouting

SPEAKER_02 49:10

I mean again it might vary from location to location, but in overall the insect pressure wasn't extreme at any of the orchards that I am aware. You know, we had some situations where growers were finding stuff that they didn't expect. However, that was nothing unusual. That was that is normal. So similarly, like Sean mentioned, you know, how great the yield was and crop and conditions, I think it was a good year for the insects. I mean according to we had only two and a half generations, it didn't have enough time to go into the third generation. Actually, I think that the cold weather we had for like for two weeks at the end of August, the one that forced the fruit to be so nice, actually helped also some of the insects to slow down the development and start thinking about the overwintering. So that all of this kind of level off any potential issues and the season is done. And now I only only want to mention a few things for the winter because I I think this is the time to talk about them. Because normally, you know, we talk about insects when we need to control them, but right now, when you guys will be in the orchards, you will be doing the pruning, you will be spending more time looking at the trees and not worry about the all the diseases on the leaves. Uh when you look at the truth, just when you're pruning, look at the European red mite eggs. I mean, this is the best time to see them, and then it will help you decide what you're gonna do later on. Look at the scales. I mean, this is the time that you see them, they are easy to detect. Uh, some of them, remember one thing about scale is they are actually even if they are dead, they're not falling off the tree. So when you see the scales on the bark of the branches, just make sure that those the scale is either live or dead. If it's dead, well, it will be there and there is no but there is no problem. If they are live, and life, you know, you can you just basically can go with your nail and smash a few of them. If they are wet, it means they are live. Then you have you know in the spring you will have to take care of it. The same with the aphids. Aphids are more difficult to see, however, you know, they are nice, shiny football-shaped black ovals that you can see on the branches. Those are the aphids. Another thing that frequently is being sent to us during the winter are leopard moth injuries. This is the insect that won't destroy your orchard, but if present on the young trees, it can kill the tree or actually retard the growth of the tree very significantly. Those are the ones, this is the one that is tunneling inside the main branches. You know, the larva can be inch and a half long, it will be inside the tunnel, and you know, those branches were basically will be dead when the season is over. Another thing is, and this is mostly for the grapes, guys. This is the time to see how the spatted lantern fly affected your grapes, your vines. I mean, you will see them right now, you will see them very easily. The egg masses, it's only one generation per season. The egg masses look like a you know, grey blob of something, of soil or something that are on the branches. If you see it, well, get ready for the next season. There's nothing to control right now, it's more about look, be observant, and see, make some decisions now what might or might not be needed to do next spring. If you don't have European red mites, if you don't have scales, well, maybe you don't need to control any insect until after petal fall. Well, if you do, then some other applications might be needed. Um I think during the last podcast I mentioned the Lordman issue. Um it was difficult to find anything during the uh government shutdown from any anyone to contact about the regulation. I tried to went to the website and stuff like this, and basically it looks like chloropyrified products from Drexel, Garda, and Loveland are illegal to use on apples, card cherries, and peaches. Those three crops are one of the ten other ten crops that the EPA granted special exemptions and those ten crops can be sprayed. Again, apples, tart cherries, and peaches, which means no pears, no apricots, no nectarins, no sweet cherries. And if you're listening from outside of Pennsylvania, you make sure that you can do it in your state because those extra usages that are left for for chlorpyrifos are only in certain legal only in certain states, not legal in other states. But it seems like at least growers in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia we do have chlorpyrifels for use on apples, peaches, and tart cherries. The label is different, the label is amended, but you find the newest label, the one that was amended after 2025, and you should be able to use it. The reason I'm saying this right, and the name of the products are basically Pilot, Warhawk, and Chlorpyrifos 4E or LambdaFoss. But remember, Drexel, Garda, or Loveland are the only three companies that still sell products for use on those fruits. This is very important to remember. And the reason I'm mentioning this is that another insect that you will see right now much easier than during the season are Dagwood Borer and Peachtree Borer. Those are the ones there's no grass around the trunks, there's no growth, and but you still can still see the frost, you can still see the oozing. So look at this. This is not the time to do it. But be observant and then make a decision what you're gonna do in 2026, which will come much sooner than we expect. Anyway, that's all I have. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

Awesome. Thanks so much, Greg. Really appreciate all that good information and that update, especially about uh the core pyrophos. Uh so that is heartening to hear uh as with regards to the usage of that. So so that pretty much wraps up our postmortem debrief of the 2025 season. And also don't forget about your preparations for next season in when it comes to disease management. Uh, Dawn, any final thoughts? You've been listening patiently and digesting all of our information.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

Yeah. Um, thanks again, Greg, for the Clarepyr False update. I know a number of folks have asked me uh from across the spectrum, and it's always just kind of like, uh, let me talk to my entomologist who hopefully knows more than I do. Um so I appreciate you you digging deep on that for me. Um yeah, so for me, I I mean this is another season, another successful season of podcasting, in my opinion. Thanks to everyone for listening in. Um this is kind of the end of our quote unquote regular season stuff. We will continue to produce episodes throughout the winter. Um, we're gonna try and get another one out here probably sometime before in early December, so that way you guys have something to listen to. You know, Christmas, early Christmas present. Um and we'll continue to kind of put them out through uh January, February, March, up until when we start doing regular updates again. Um I know folks kind of said that they'd like to hear some more stuff during the during the lull in the year. Um, so we're gonna do that. Uh I've got some folks lined up to do some interviews, some folks from around the country, folks that you don't normally hear from or wouldn't normally see. Um I'm really excited to talk to some of those folks and bring them on and chat with what they're doing across the country. I think they're doing some really, really cool work. And yeah, thanks again for listening, folks. Um, Carrie, Sean, Greg, thank you guys so much for jumping on here all the time and doing this and uh you know making this thing happen.

SPEAKER_00 59:46

So thanks so much, Don. You are a producer. You you are a fearless producer, so thanks.

SPEAKER_02 59:54

Thank you, Don, for all the work you did. And of course, you know, we keep talking and but you keep ed editing and That's great. Actually, this time editing is great. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:05

Thanks. So thank you guys so much. Uh, those of you listening, thank you so much for listening as always. And we will see you guys soon. Say goodbye, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:16

See you later. Bye.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:18

Bye. Bye.