Season 7, Episode 12 - Leaf Sampling Time!

Kari, Shan, and Greg highlight what to do while the thermometers top out. Leaf sampling, fire blight protection, and insect monitoring are all on the docket.

Host: Don Seifrit
Speakers: Kari Peter, Shan Kumar, Greg Krawczyk

Photo Credit: K. Peter, PSU

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 Today’s Lineup

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Alright, welcome back once again, everybody. I'm Don Sefer. It's the Dr. Tree Fruit and Dawn Podcast. It is July 16th, and I am here with Dr. Greg Krawchak. Say hi, Greg.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Dr. Carrie Peter, say hi, Carrie.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Hi there.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

And the person who will be starting us off today, Dr. Sean Kumar. Say hi, Sean.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Hello, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

So, Sean, uh, we'll just get right into it.

Heat Alerts And Sunburn Risk

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Uh thanks, John. Uh, so yeah, I just wanted to start off uh with acknowledging how hot it has been. Uh we have another sort of uh hundred close to hundred Fahrenheit temperatures this week. We had that about a couple of weeks ago as well. And so I hope that uh you've been doing something for sunburn protection. Um I sent out an alert of a couple of weeks ago highlighting some of the products that could that you could have used. And so uh so I just wanted to acknowledge that. So this

Leaf And Soil Sampling Timing

SPEAKER_03 1:04

is the season where you will start to take your leaf or soil samples for uh testing to see uh to look at the nutrient analysis and make decisions on nutrient applications uh for sometimes this fall as opposed to harvest application, or also for the mostly for the spring applications. Uh so uh honey crisp, I'm sure you've seen it. I'm I'm I'm seeing it in my own honey crisp orchard. So you might have started to see uh zonal vein chlorosis, leaf chlorosis happening in your honey crisp and premier honey crisp. And so uh for specifically for those varieties, this is a time to test. Actually, right before those symptoms appear is the right time to test, but you can also test it now. Uh, and so now is the time to take those leaf samples. Usually, uh, when we take leaf samples, we take it from the new flush of growth that we had this year from the middle of that new flush of growth. And so we can take uh 10 leaves from each tree uh for a total of five trees and 50 leaves, or you can take five leaves from each tree uh from uh 10 different trees to get 50 leaves, and then you can send that sample off. Uh Penn State has its ag analytical laboratory where you can analyze your samples, or you can send it to other labs around the state. Uh I just wanted to highlight that with Penn State's Ag Analytical Laboratory, we have changed recommendations for Honey Crisp based on extensive research that's been done on Honey Crisp nutrition uh with uh uh with suggested levels of potassium being slightly lower, suggested levels of calcium being slightly higher, and suggested levels of nitrogen being uh a little bit lower as well. Both for the soil and the leaf tests, these have changed, and with the Penn State's AG Analytical Laboratory, you'll be able to get the latest recommendations. I highly encourage any uh third-party services that you might be using. Usually, many people have uh company reps come into their farms and take soil and leaf samples. Uh, I would highly encourage them to look at the new recommendations at in the Penn State Tree Fruit Production Guide or also contact Penn State Ag Analytical Laboratory or myself, where we can give out the new recommendations for both the soil and leaf uh testing. Uh, and so just wanted to highlight that because we have separate recommendations for honey crisp because of the amount of work that's been done uh on honey crisp, bitapit, and other nutritional issues and storage issues. And so this is the right time to sample honey crisp if you haven't already, because we are starting to see zonal vein chlorosis happen in premier and regular honey crisp. Um, and so there's a little bit of time left for sampling for most other varieties. Usually that happens at the end of July. Uh, maybe this year it might be better to uh because of the heavy flush of growth with that we are continuing to see, it might be better to wait until early August, mid-August to uh do the sampling, uh especially of the leaves, and then you can take the soil samples uh starting now and that time too. And I highly recommend taking a leaf sample this year, especially because of uh the fact that we have a low to no crop load, and it'll be interesting to see what sort of uh nutrition your your trees might need. Sometimes they might not need much at all, whereas your soil samples might indicate that they might need a little bit more. Uh so if you take if you're taking if you take your leaf sample, you'll know more accurately as to whether uh you uh your trees really need some nutrition or not. Uh and so you might be actually saving money in the long term because leaves uh leaf tests are a little bit more expensive than soil tests, usually about two two times or three times more expensive. And so it might be worth it if your leaf test is giving you results that say that you don't need to add much nutrition uh as compared to your soil tests, which might not be as accurate because it's not giving you the real status of the tree. So I just wanted to mention that uh that you can take those, uh take sampling for honey crisp and premier honey crisp now, and for your other varieties, you can start with them early August, mid-August, around that time.

Harvest Outlook And Degree Days

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Um, the other thing I wanted to mention was about harvest. I know in Adams County we are about close, about one and a half to two weeks away from harvesting our very first uh crop of the season. Usually we start with wildfire gala, the early uh strain of gala, and uh that's very popular grown around in Adams County, not so much in the rest of the state, but uh so something to note for with this season is that when I check the growing degree days 41 degree Fahrenheit for uh Freck and other regions, it seems to closely match the growing degree days of what we had last year. There seems to be only a minimal difference of half a day to a day. So, what happened was we started with a very warm, uh early warm uh growth where our growing degree days exceeded a lot as compared to last year. So we were about seven to ten days ahead, but then we had uh some cool weather after that for a couple of weeks, and then we had cool weather after that for a couple of weeks as well, uh, between the hot spells, and so we have sort of equaled out as far as growing degree days. I checked the 41 Fahrenheit growing degree days, however, that doesn't mean that your season this year will be exactly the same as last somewhat similar dates, maybe a couple of days earlier, but then uh Mr. also acknowledged that we have had two uh extremely hot heat spells this year, and uh what you could potentially see when you have a heat spell is you might see some changes in the ratios of your different harvest indices that you might use for harvest. So, for example, uh when you have such hot weather, usually firmness tends to sort of drop uh drastically as compared to other indices. For example, if you're used to a particular firmness when you see a starch of three or four, that might differ this year because of the very warm spells we have had. So it's important to not just rely on one uh index and rather look both at starch and uh at, of course, color is one thing that we always look at, and uh starch and firmness, and use two or three indices to for checking for harvest because you might see different trends as compared to historic trends this year. But I'm predicting that the harvest will be closer to last year's harvest dates based on the growing degree days. Uh, they might be about a couple of days early because they we are a couple of days ahead as compared to last year, but not by much. And last year, you as you might remember, we were about a week ahead of I don't know if what to call normal anymore, but like they were a week ahead last year of the year before in 2024. And so last year was already ahead, and so we're gonna closely match the sort of harvest times that we had last year, and so that's just something to keep track of. We're going to have a very reduced maturity update uh season this year. We're gonna primarily focus on the main varieties, uh, some strains of gala and honey crisp, and uh at situations where it is possible to, we will also look at retained versus unretained, but that will be very minimal this year considering the low harvest quantity that we have. And so we're gonna run uh so uh uh adjusting to that, we're gonna run uh limited maturity updates program starting in the last week of July uh for some of our main varieties uh that we are looking to harvest. And so with that, I think yeah, I think that's all I have for now. If you have any questions, let me know.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

No, that sounds really good. Um thanks for the update. Uh Carrie, you're out.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Okay,

Why Fire Blight Explodes This Year

SPEAKER_00 9:20

so this has been uh a pretty challenging year for many growers when it comes to Fireblight. So I want to spend some time kind of talking about why Fireblight has just been such a thorn in pretty much everyone's side. So first let's start from the very beg well, like the early part of the season. When we had uh it was the week of April 12th, 13th around there, um, that was the week pretty much everyone got into bloom because we hit summer temperatures. So we were in the upper 80s, maybe even the 90s during that week for anywhere from four to six days, depending on where you were located. Uh so and then during that time we had wedding events. Um, even though they were not in the forecast at the start of the week, um, we ended up having some very significant fire blight infection events. So that heat really drove the severity of those fire blight infection events. Uh, and so from that, we really had uh an excellent source of fire blight that got established and then is now uh being a real pain for a lot of people. So that's one aspect of it. This probably would have quieted down had we not had the freeze the following week, uh, and that basically torched all the apples. So, what we have now are trees that are growing like crazy because they do not have fruit on them, telling the tree to stop growing shoots and to focus on growing fruit. So that's what typically happens, like in late June, early July, um, every single year when you are growing apples, the the energy shifts in the tree. Uh, and that's when we reach typically terminal budset. So that's when we reach terminal budset, the shoots are no longer actively growing. The tree has gotten a signal from the fruit to basically tell the fruit, hey, I want you to grow more of me, not of shoots. Um so the shoots harden off, those hardened off shoots are not susceptible or as susceptible to fire blight. So typically we see fire blight drastically slow down once we see trees reaching terminal budset. And this is good because uh fire blight slows down, typically people aren't worried about it, um, and it's not spreading. Um, that is not happening this year because with no fruit on the trees, we have this constant source of growth that is occurring if you have not been persistently putting on some kind of hormone that stops the growth, like prohexadiol and calcium. Um, so consequently, we have a lot of green succulent flush out there on the trees that is very susceptible to fire blight, and it doesn't help that we had a terrible fire blight infection year to get that fire blight established. Um, so those are two things that are basically feeding into each other. Uh, and that's that is why we're seeing what we're seeing. And so also compounding this is that it is ingrained in our DNA to when we see fire blight to cut it out. So I know there's a lot of growers cutting out fire blight, but we're making the problem worse because we're basically just still telling that tree you need to continue putting out new growth. So the harder you cut your tree back, the more shoots you're cutting out, the more you're telling that tree to put out new succulent shoots. And those new succulent shoots are still going to be susceptible to fire blight, and you're gonna see this vicious cycle continue. So there's that going on. The other thing that's going on, and this is something that people typically forget about until they are faced with it, is canker blight. So canker blight is a form of shoot blight that occurs when cankers are left in the trees. And so this is most often viewed in much older trees, uh, bigger trees, uh, you know, trees that may be on 111 or 118 or M7 rootstocks, or even um M26 rootstocks that are uh that they can get into be pretty sizable trees as well, semi-dwarfs. And so uh what happens is that when you leave those cankers in the trees, the bacteria in those that are at the edge of those cankers, living in the healthy wood bordering the dead wood, it awakens when the tree awakens from dormancy in the spring. And that bacteria will circulate through the trees, through the vascular system, going towards the growing areas of the tree, i.e., shoots. So oftentimes you will see the this type of shoot blight in clusters, like this massive cluster of shoot blight on a scaffold. That's a telltale sign of canker blight when you see maybe like 10 shoots sort of showing fire blight symptoms on a tree. And so in those cases, the only way to really fix it is to cut out the canker, and in many cases, it's really removing an affected scaffold. Uh, and so when I people see that, I'm like, you typically want to wait until winter to do that. Um you could do it in in the summer um if you've got the manpower and time, but typically, you know, those that that those dead branches will stay there until winter and it'll tell you where to really aggressively prune, then in the winter. So it it's your call depending on the time. Um at Freck here, when we've had this situation, we've just left the tree and waited until winter to cut out those large scaffolds. So that is something just to be aware about of canker blight. And in many of these trees, is that they will still produce a crop, they'll come back next year, they'll come back the year after, and the year after that. But what happens with these trees is they become the typhoid mary, so to speak, in the orchard because you have active fire blight, active erwinia that is being produced from these affected areas on the trees, and they fly very well in wind currents, and they fly very well in prevailing winds. So if you have a new orchard planted next to one of these old orchards, you can have a lot of problems in that new orchard. I know from experience, been there, done that. Uh, and so I can tell you that it's very problematic to plant a new orchard, especially when it's on the east side of it, uh, and you have the prevailing winds coming, it will just blow that bacteria that's being produced in that old orchard block onto your new trees. And that's why your trees become infected. So there's lots of situations this summer where fire blight, why fire blight is popping up. It's a very complex situation, but the biggest culprit is the fact that we have trees that are not getting that signal to go to terminal budset and basically shut down their shoot growth. That is what's driving a lot of this. So, what to do?

Growth Control Reality Check

SPEAKER_00 16:19

So, with all this said, so this explains why you're seeing what you're seeing, what to do. I'm assuming since they're still growing, and Sean may want to pipe in that you could still use prohexadione calcium now, I mean um to shut down the growth of the trees to slow it down. And growers may have been doing this and they may have been saying, Well, I've been putting this on, and the trees will grow out of it if you don't continually put it on. I do know this from experience. So, this is something that you could do to sort of slow things down. Um, this is um it remember it takes 10 to 14 days for it to kick in to harden off. So, this will take care of issues where the fire blight's already in the trees, like canker blight. Um, as far as fire blight that's being spread around the orchard, um, that is not the source is not coming from the canker blight. Again, um prohexidile and calcium will fit help that. Another thing to be thinking about, and um, we've looked at this at Freck, is using fungiut, and this is the citric acid-based product. Um, citric acid is an acidifier, and Erwinia does not like acidified environments. And I've said this on a couple podcasts about this research that has occurred from Oregon State where they acidified antibiotic sprays and it seemed to control the Erwinia much better than antibiotic by itself. So there is research backing up this um idea or this hypothesis that by creating an acidic environment, an acidified environment with Erwinia should slow it down, if not stop it. So, this is where the idea that this product would work. And we have used this at Freck. We haven't I haven't been able to use it to sort of control shoot blight because we controlled fire blight way too well, believe it or not, at Freck this summer or this season, I should say. And we don't have much fire blight um this year, which is uh which is really interesting, and I will say um one of the things we did this year is because of how severe it was, we did do everything, throw everything in a kitchen sink at our trees this year, and that included using fungi in our streptomycin sprays early in the year. So I think moving forward, this is something I will be researching more, but I do see the merits of using this product because the research, the foundational research is there to support of this acidified environment deterring erwinia. So this is something you could use. Um follow the label. Uh, it's like one, it's you're using a 1.4% solution, so that's a 1.4 gallons and a hundred gallon um per acre uh spray. Uh so this is this is an option to do. There's really not much else. Um, when you have a fire blight, active fire blight, going in there with something like acteguard doesn't work. I've test I've tested this ad nauseum. Actogard only works as preventative as far as um slowing the disease down. It does not work as well or as effective after the fact once the infection is already in place. Um, I've done this in the greenhouse, done this in the field. It it's not it's not optimal, especially with the conditions we have now. It's not gonna work. Um, so as far as uh really prohexadone calcium, that is that is it as far as kind of shutting down the tree. Sean, did you have a comment about that?

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Yeah, I just want to mention that. So this year what we tried was because we usually rarely have a tree without fruit, which we do this season. So we tried sequential applications of prohexalant calcium, and uh we had a control, we didn't have a true control in the sense that we applied prohexal at the highest rate of prohexal and calcium 12 ounces about uh a week or two after the freeze. Uh, and that seemed to do something at that time to control it a little bit, but after that, subsequent applications of prohexalant calcium could not, and these were all 12-ounce sprays, the highest rate, and they could not control vigor, even in medium vigor uh trees like Kela and high vigor trees, of course, like Fuji, which I didn't expect it to control vigor, but we are just not seeing that vigor control. There's there's like minor differences between the treatments, but we were basically not able to see much difference between uh applying proxy don't calcium after the you know after uh after a couple of inches of growth, you see, especially with no crop with a slight crop load, maybe you might see some effects, but at this point in the season, I don't think pro excellent calculations. Okay, well, then that's for uh controlling.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

So for anyone who has has fruit, you probably are seeing terminal budset. So you so Sean, so basically all the advice I've given is out the window. So this is what happens when you're recording. Um, but so Sean, I guess um, so you're not even seeing terminal budset occurring on any of these trees where where prohacks was dumped at the highest rate? Um with no crop.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

Uh we are slowly starting to see it because we're seeing the slowing of the growth, like from about mid-July, uh, which is right now. Uh, and then so I think that terminal budset is happening as we speak. Uh, and I don't know if that's a little bit earlier than usual because we applied proexidon calcium, but growth is definitely slowing down, but it's also slowing down for the uh for the uh control, which we only did one application of prohexodon calcium, and so it is slowly slowing down, and we are seeing terminal uh Uh butt growth, but it is not yet like uh completely stopped or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Uh the other thing, okay, so this just sort of wipes out my um recommendations. So this is good to know as far as the trees with no fruit. So uh okay, so let's back up then and and I'll revamp sort of my um recommendations here. So it looks like ProX down calcium is not the it was not sort of the um the the the good thing that we were hoping it was gonna be to sort of help control this really vigorous, these really vigorous trees this year. So what to do now? One, I know heat and drought are gonna slow things down too. So Mother Nature, um, there is some benefits to unfortunately, unfortunately, things that are going on right now with the heat and and lack of rain. So that should slow the trees

Stop Summer Pruning Infected Trees

SPEAKER_00 22:49

down. What I would really want to caution growers is don't over-prune these trees that have fire blight in it because you're just gonna make things worse. Just walk away from those trees that have fire blight. And that's basically what I've done with my pink ladies that have fire blight, which have no fruit. I've just let them go. I'm not I'm not paying attention to them because I don't want to create um a problem that's worse. And I did that last year, and my trees actually rebonded very well this year. So I would tell really tell growers just walk away from those trees, put the pruners away and just wait until winter to prune those trees. That's probably the best thing you can do right now. And this the heat and the lack of rain will also hopefully kind of kick things into slowing down as well. So unfortunately, we're in a tough spot. There are no perfect fixes, there's no silver bullet. Um, but I just will say is again, just emphasizing caution of overcutting these trees. Um, okay, so that's the story about Fireblight, which I know a lot of people, I feel like every other person I talk to, I'm dealing with that.

Final Sprays For Rot And Storage

SPEAKER_00 23:55

So just quickly to go over sort of the for those who still have fruit or caring for fruit, um, summer diseases right now, really we're worried about fruit rot, sooty blotch, and fly spec. One thing to be concerned about is sunburn weakening the skin, weakening the fruit, weakening the integrity and becoming an area for a rot to occur, which we know this happens. And sometimes that even if the it seems that even just having the fruit heat up and you may not be an obvious sunburn, but the fact that it's so hot out there, this might even be enough um damage to, so to speak, to encourage some of the rots like bitter rot to start manifesting. Fortunately, this year hasn't been so crazy wet for you in the eastern half. It may be a have been a little wetter, but I don't think you have as much fruit. Uh, so this might be a blessing in disguise, another sort of fortunate event, um, kind of silver lining. Uh, so for those who do have fruit, just remember that for bitter route you want your spray on ahead of time. So as we're nearing harvest, be thinking about your maravons, your lunar sensations, cabrio. These should be in your final sprays. Uh, and make sure and please, I need I'll I will emphasize this in every podcast moving forward, and I will mention this probably in my disease update that I email out. Is that because we have such a low crop this year, whatever fruit that is going to the pack houses, we want that to be in good shape. So please, please, please make sure you have some kind of spray, long like a longevity spray like maravon, that will help those packers store that fruit for a period of time, or at least not be damaged by any unsuspecting rots that could be lurking in the latent phase, or um be a risk to get um blue mold in storage as well. So maravon, lunisensation, flin extra, cabrio, uh, those are your best bets as your final sprays. So one to two sprays, make sure they're on at the end. Um, and then the as far as stone fruit, it's been fairly dry. You know, we still worry about brown rot. It was really funny. Online, I there was uh a congressman who had um, I guess a small peach orchard and they were really excited they had peaches. And so they posted a picture on Instagram of all these peaches, and I was like, wow, I see a lot of brown rot. I saw peach scab. I saw bacterial spot. I was going to make a comment, but then I thought, nah, I'll let them relish in the fact that they have like a peach crop. So I didn't want to kind of burst their bubble. But as a pathologist, I thought they were going to be bringing that to Capitol Hill. And I'm like, I'm not sure how much of those fruit are going to make it. Um, but uh, but yeah, so brown rot's definitely out there. Um, but just again, you know, your final sprays um should be something durable uh to control those post-harvest brown rot um issues. So um, yeah, that's about as kind of long-winded, but um fire blight again, I know is on uh everyone's mind, so it's worth discussing. Uh any any questions, just let me know.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Awesome. Thanks, Gary. That was a good good update. Uh and Greg, last but not least.

Insects When There Is No Fruit

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Oh well. I mean, we already covered orchard with fruit and orchard without fruit. Um uh or absence of the fruit won't really make a big difference for most of the insects. I mean the only insect that suffers if there are no fruit in the orchard are actually codling mouth. Codling moth feeds only on palm fruit and it simply requires fruit to be present. It does not have alternative hosts. Saying this, you know, oriental fruit moth stingback, they will do well. It doesn't matter if fruit are present or fruit are absent. So this is something to remember when you will decide what to do for the rest of the season. It's been a while since the last update, but at least from the entomology part, but you know, usually beginning to mid-July is the time when we actually can assess how good our insect management program worked in the early part of the season. And again, if you see lots of flaggings on peaches, well, it means there are a lot of oriental fruit moth. If you have fruit and you see a lot of misshapen stone fruit, well they were probably uh stingbug, they were probably plant bugs. There most likely were some uh plum curcule that might affect the fruit. But if there are no fruit, then is there a reason to control oriental fruit moth? Is there a reason to control brown marmorated stingbug? I would say that if you have no fruit, then you probably should let it go. I mean they will survive, but if you spray, you might kill them, but there is really no guarantee that anything you do this season will have any impact on the insect pest pressure population next season. And this is important to understand brown marmorated is moving in and out of the orchards, so you can control them to protect crop that you have, but next year there will be new ones coming. Similar situation is with Japanese beetle right now. I mean, because of the rain we got, I mean there is a lot of Japanese beetle out there feeding. Again, you can control them if you want to protect truth, if you want to protect some of the stone fruit, because Japanese beetle together with june beetle then can actually feed on the fruit. You know, you can control them to protect the crop you have. However, if you let them go, well, they will go after foliage and they do perfectly well feeding on foliage. They will feed on apples, although if they have grapes or plums around, those are their preferred crop. But again, do you need to control them? Well, yes, you can to protect the foliage, but we already heard that there is uh because no fruit, there is an extensive growth, and the trees are still growing and so on, or you can let them go because next year you will have to come back again and control them, doesn't matter what you do this year. So this is something to remember.

Traps And Resistance For Codling Moth

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Um, if you have crop, and you know, I don't know, five, ten, twenty, hundred percent, and I have seen cases of each one of it. I've been in the orchard that has zero fruit, and I've been in blocks that basically have a normal crop. Um what you need to worry about is controlling codling moth, controlling oriental fruit moth, and protecting fruit from the stingbug. We are at the beginning, and some places we are already in second generation of codling moth. We are done with the second generation of oriental fruit moth, but we are at the start of the third generation of oriental fruit moth. And within the next few weeks, stinkbugs will start moving to orchards in a large numbers. We see them around, they still doing well outside, but mid-early August, mid-August, that's when they move to the orchard. So if you have crop, those are the most important pests you have to worry about. How to control coding moth or oriental fruit moth? Well, the first thing is, and I keep saying this, and it's almost almost a shame to keep repeating this. The only way for you to know if you have or don't have them is if you have a monitoring system in your blocks. You really need to have traps. They will tell you if they are there, and they will tell you when the flight starts, and then you can go to newer, you can adjust the beginning of the first generation, second generation, third generation start, and then new will provide you with some indication how you can control it. So there is a lot of pieces here, but if you need to control oriental fruit uh codling moth or oriental fruit moth, the diamite insecticides, the alta core, the eggsyril, the verdeprim, those are still very effective products. I have a report from one of the orchards here in Adams County that people think that alta core did not work on their fruit. They have fruit and the codling moth is going through it. Well, this orchard was identified as one of those that have the resistance to diametes, and they use diametes to control it. So that's kind of you know obvious that it could not work. What's the other option if you don't want to use diamite or you use diamite during the first generation? Delegate. Delegate is a completely mod of action, it's equally effective, and you can use delegate for the rest of the season. Uh, you can also use the valgo, this new product that was just introduced. I don't think it's the best option at the moment, but if you worry about brown marmorated stingback also coming later too, the valgo will provide you control of codling moth, oriental fruit moth, and brown marmorated stink bug later on. So, you know, maybe going some other spray or something, there is a limit how many applications you can have per season. But this is something to consider. Saying this, if you are trying to have a very, very soft program, then MADEX HP, uh SIDEX, Virosoft, those are the granulosis virus products. The issue with these products is, I mean, those are very effective products. If you apply them at the right time and you have a good coverage, they are as effective as anything else. The problem is that the statement is valid only for about seven days after application. Going into day eight, ten, nine after the application, the UV light basically deactivating completely the CPGV virus and it doesn't work anymore. So, this is something to remember if you want to go with this very soft approach. Your applications have to be made every seven maximum eight days apart. Otherwise, you basically will lose the efficacy, you open the window. The products don't kill adults, so it's only work on neonate larvae. So the adults are out there, they're laying eggs, the eggs are hatching. If the MADEX, SIDEX, Virosoft are not fresh, then they won't help.

Woolly Apple Aphid And San Jose Scale

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Uh, another thing to look at right now, and I have a sometimes contradictory report, is the woolly apple aphid. I mean, this is the time that you will see woolly apple aphids in the orchard. Uh, in most cases, there's no need really to worry when you see them here and there. And again, if you're going soft program without any pyretroids, without any harsh, harsh products, uh woolly apple if it will not destroy your trees. But if you let them go, no crop, maybe the biological control will re-establish itself. And then wolves are very well controlled by the alpha linous my effective and actually will take care of woolys, they will not remove the white stuff, white cotton stuff, but the aphids under it will be dead, they will be as a mummies. So, this is something to remember. If, on the other hand, if you know you have a problem and the problem is reaching out of hands, and again, I have seen orchards basically that look like covered with the snow, and that was because of wooly apple lavers. Your only option in situations like this is diazenone at one pound. It's only one application per season, it's really a rescue treatment, but this rescue treatment will kill wool apple aphids. But again, one application, one time, and it's use it as a rescue. Movento is another option, but movento is translaminar, is systemic, and movento works better when applied when the woolets are at the very low level and it's if it's moved within the plant. When apply right now as a rescue, they will not movento will not most likely kill, especially if the foliage and is hardening and there is no that much growth happening on the tree. Uh, another thing to think about right now is also San Jose scale. Uh, you know, you can have the San Jose scale, remnants of it from last year and so on. And again, the scale will still on the bark, will still stay on the woods. But if you see a new fresh scale on the growing this year shoots, or you see any sign on San Jose scale on fruit, well then you have a fresh infestation. Uh there are no new products. I mean Semstar, Steam, Centaur, Movento are the ones that can be used. The problem is that if the San Jose scale is too old, then your application will be not effective. The way how we normally say is again, I'm going back to monitoring. They are commercially a viable pheromone traps for male San Jose scale. If you see where the area in your orchard where San Jose scale is present because of the presence of the new this year growth or fruit, you can put those traps, and when you start seeing adults, and those will be males, any application of the SENSTAR, esteem, Centaur or Movento within 10, 14 days after started seeing those male adults should be effective in preventing new infestation. They will not clean infestation that is already present, but they will help. We are right now probably in the third generation of San Jose scale. There may be one more window, late July, August, to control it. But again, put those traps out because otherwise you will be spraying expensive products basically in the dark. Because they the none of this product will work if the we already the hard heart shell scale, when this scale is already attached, and so on. So it basically will be wasting your money. You really have to apply any one of those products when the nymphs are fresh, when the eggs are hatching, when actually the moving. That's the only time when you can control San Jose scale. Again, we are in the second generation right now, maybe third, put those straps out, it varies from orchard to orchard.

Spotted Wing Drosophila Watchouts

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Another thing is the spotted winged rhosophila. This insect is here, and those of you who have plums, raspberries, blackberries, you know that how bad it can be, blueberries, how bad it can be for your crop. Uh monitoring is the best way to know if you have a problem. And then if you have it, then again, delegate might be the best your option. Any application of neonicotinoids, those are the things that can help. So sorry for the little bit long update, but I wanted to cover a lot of things because again, it was a while since I did my last update. Any questions that the crew here might have? Or if not, you know, you guys know how to contact me and just feel free to send me an email or call me, and then you know we can talk about specific situations because this year is unique. It's not every orchard might be different, even blocks might be different. And this is not only from the horde perspective or plant paths. But also entomology perspective. So again, the decision might be more difficult to make. So that's all I have. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

Awesome. Thanks, Greg. And yeah, that's a good reminder that, you know, we can give broad general advice, but you know, everyone's orchard's different. Everyone's blocks are different this year. So it's important to just remind folks that there really isn't a one-size-fits-all. Exactly.

Southern Blight Warning For Young Blocks

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Carrie, do you have something you want to uh well there was one thing I wanted to mention, and it's really um for mainly it's possibly just be for Adams County growers, but it might pop up in the rest of the state, and that's Southern Blight. So this is an excellent year for Southern Blight based on how hot it is and how much rain has occurred um across the state. It's kind of been feast or famine in various locations, like even here in like I know parts of Pennsylvania received inches, and we got like um half an inch down here. But the heat and a lot of rain in a short period of time, meaning last week, uh we might see issues with Southern Blight pop up. Um, Southern Blight is something that right now I've only observed it in Adams County, but that doesn't mean it's not out there. Uh and so this would be a year where I could see it possibly pop up. So for growers who may see all of a sudden crazy, unexpected decline in young Bud 9 or Bud 10 or M9 orchards, because Bud 9, Bud 10, and M9 are very vulnerable to Southern Blade. Uh keep me posted. Um let me know if you see anything, especially because you would see it in the coming weeks because of last week. There is like an incubation period. But Southern Blade in Adams County is very much alive and well. Um, we have an orchard that um Dr. Sarah Sarah and I are working on a project of how to deal with Southernblight in an already existing orchard. So we're trying different methods. Um, and hopefully we will be discussing the results this fall in like a little public short small field day in mid-October, probably. Um we're still figuring the details of that. Um, but if people see unexpected decline that seems to come out of left field, especially in orchards with BUD 9, M9, BUD 10, please keep me posted. Um, right now, Southern Blade's a soil-borne disease. It lives season to season as sclerosia in the soil. Only right now is reported in Abbams County, but I don't believe it's just in our county. I think it's a little more prevalent in the soil, unfortunately, um, than we care to admit, but we just haven't had the conditions. But based on how hot it is this year and the rain, it's sort of a perfect storm. So that was all.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

I have one more update because I have heard about people saying that transform might be a good option for controlling wooly apple aphid. Uh I really don't have any data to support it, but I also don't have any data to say that no, it will not work. We basically never tested it under heavy uh infestation, and I would be very careful if there is a heavy wooly apple infestation and transform it being used. Saying this also, I believe diazanon would be not an acceptable option for some of you who are selling fruit through the wholesale and going to those big markets. So transform or Movento might be the only other option left. So that's just a comment when Kerry was talking, and I just thought, what? I need to I I forgot to mention this. So thanks.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Sounds good. Uh all right.

Closing Thoughts And Goodbye

SPEAKER_02 48:14

So unless anyone has anything else, I think we'll just get off here and I'll try and get this edited and so people can listen to it. Sound good?

SPEAKER_00 48:23

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

All right, say goodbye, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Goodbye, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

Goodbye, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

Bye, everyone.