I was thinking I might have to thin my fruit on my pear but it dropped probably just the right amount of the small pears retaining plenty for the tree to carry. Have they all fallen off?
Some clusters have a few, but many flower clusters now have none. This is the first year my hosui has fruited, but some fruit remain. I had 11 New Century pears last year but it seems that tree is dropping many of its fruitlets. I can’t remember if this happened last year also.
I did some research and that tree doesn’t have ambrosia beetles. But I found I did loose a tree to them this spring in another orchard. Thanks for suggesting. I might not have known what it was otherwise.
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I was down in the farm orchard today, and was looking at my Alkmene apple tree that was planted last year, and it looks like it’s set a fruit! This tree and one other were the only apples to bloom this year, but I’m surprised it set anything. I guess it got cross-pollinated with a big old Milam apple tree right next to it that was blooming profusely a couple weeks ago.
Do I need to take that one off, as it’s probably not ready to fruit considering it’s size and age? It’s about 5ft tall with a few small scaffolds, on G11 rootstock.
It’ll probably drop
While out by the barn today, I noticed that our Moonglow pear has something strange going on with it. I don’t have pics of it now, so I’ll try to describe it the best I can.
Some background on the tree. I bought it two years ago from Lowe’s, it was in a 5gal pot, and about 5ft tall. I planted it in April of that year with the rootball intact. I don’t remember pruning the tree afterwards. The tree has put on decent growth since then, it’s about 10ft tall now. It’s been leafed out about 2-3 weeks, and seemed to be OK. It didn’t bloom this year, but not a big deal.
Well, today when I saw it, the top 2ft of the central leader and close-by branches were drooping over, like it had been cut or broken. Upon closer inspection, the leader/branches looked OK, and the leaves were still green like the rest of the tree. There doesn’t seem to be any diseases on the tree that I could tell, either.
So, what could the problem be? We’ve gone about 9 days with very warm and dry weather, so maybe it’s undergoing some heat stress? Maybe its roots aren’t sufficient enough to get enough water up to the top of the tree?
We’re getting a deluge tonight, so that may remedy the situation, or make it worse. We’ll see tomorrow. When i went outside an hour ago, we had already got an inch of rain, and its coming down hard again, so we might end up with 2" before it’s done with.
It might be OK tomorrow, but wanted to post the question anyway.
Over time I’ve seen a few interesting comments made about what results if commonly used rootstocks are allowed to mature and bear fruit. I’ve had a graft that looks like it failed this year on M-27, which i grafted too high to leave room in cased it failed, so I could grow out the root stock and try it next year. Was wondering though, has anybody seen M-27 bear fruit, and how terrible is it? Thanks!
Could it be that the roots were potbound when you planted it?
I didn’t notice when I took it out of the pot. I think I would have unraveled or cut any that were circulating around the pot.
I’m not home now, so I haven’t been out to check it today, so I don’t know if it’s any different. I’ll check it out when I get home.
We got some very heavy rains last night, so if it’s no different by now, then there’s something else wrong with it. It’s funny that our Pineapple pear is prob 3ft taller and it looks fine.
I have had them fruit . Kind of a red Delicious shape and size . Nothing great as far as taste .
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Update on the Moonglow tree. When we got home, I went out to check it out. One of the drooping branches did break, I guess from the weight of the wet leaves and some winds we had during the storm last night. I pruned it off further down towards the leader branch. Another branch was also very lopsided even though it wasn’t broken, so I went ahead and pruned it off as well. Hated to do it, but didn’t really have a choice.
I’m still at a loss as to why this happened. Any ideas?
So I left Monday morning for a business trip and got in at 4:00 am Friday morning. While I was gone it has poured the rain. I checked my trees this morning and the majority of peaches have Plum Curcilio damage, either the crescent scar or the feeding hole, Very disappointing considering I had religiously sprayed Imidan up until this point. I likely won’t get a chance to spray again until Sunday maybe Monday due to the forecast for rain. If the PC damage started after the first rain which was on Tuesday and I spray on Sunday anyone know if Imidan will get the PC larva and likely save the damaged peaches?
I literally logged on to post an almost identical story and photo and I’m just crushed…just like you. And just so you know, my experience is NOT what I read…I often see claims that Imidan has some “kick-back” or “retroactive” abilities, meaning you can spray it after you see the crescent scar and it will soak in or somehow kill the egg anyway. I’ve repeatedly tried this and never noticed the slightest bit of effect once the egg has been deposited it’s going to hatch, bore into the seed, do enough damage that the fruit will drop, and so on. You can hold on to some hope and there are people here who will insist that Imidan can still help if applied soon after you see the cresent scar. I really hate to be the pessimist, but I can only tell you that I’ve repeatedly tried this and never found even a little bit of “kick back” but apparently others have so maybe there is hope. I’d love to hear from others who have or have NOT seen some effect. Of course it can’t hurt to try, and the sooner you spray the better chance of both saving the scarred fruit and the few unaffected ones that may exist.
My own story that I came here to complain about is this: I started spraying ALL of my stone fruit this spring at petal fall or even a day or so before petal fall. I have a calendar and I have sprayed exactly every 15 days since then. I used full strength Imidan, a sticker, and added vinegar to my water to help acidify it. I also spray each tree until it is soaked and dripping. No way am I missing fruit. It seems to have worked on my yellow peaches. However, my white peache and epecially my plums have been hit pretty hard by Plum Curculio. Plums especially…one tree has the scar on almost every fruit. It is incredibly frustrating! I just don’t know what else I can do. The only thing I can offer as an explanation is that we had 2 pretty good rain days during one of my 15 day intervals. I’d have thought my sticker and spray every 2 weeks would have overcome 2 rain days but I guess not.
Here is just a small sample of some of the baby plums that I’ve lost to PC the last few days. This is so painful for me because my trees already had a very small crop due to late freeze, now they are turning red and dropping because they have PC larvae hollowing out the seeds. The scars are on each fruit and I cut several open and saw the “worm”. I am at a loss for what more I can do!
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@SpudDaddy I used a product with Imidacloprid within 3 days of noticing PC strikes on my first plums (ever). It worked great. I’ve had one turn color and fall off, and since then one more that grew larger is getting some color but over 90% are sizing up nicely.
It doesn’t last the full 4 weeks, though, because 2 peaches got hit – by OFM this time, it looks like. This was in the middle of the 4th week in lots of rain, though, so I think it worked very well.
I’m only using it as a kickback/emergency spray. I’m going to try my best to kill them with safer insecticide on a weekly basis instead, or Surround. They just hit earlier than I expected, being my 1st time with tree fruit in the orchard. I was waiting for all my trees to be out of bloom, but it looks like I’ll have to go tree by tree to catch them early enough.
You guys post made me go out and look at my fruitlets. I too have been hit hard by PC. I see scars on almost all of my peaches and cherries. Heck even my apples and pears have been hit some. I’ve sprayed Pyrethrin twice now but obviously that doesn’t work. Maybe I should purchase Imidan but from the sounds of it it is not full proof either. I’m kind of surprised PC has hit me this hard this early. There aren’t many other people around here with fruit trees and this is really my orchards first year of producing a decent crop. Guess I won’t get much again this year.
Quick question on fig trees from nurseries:
Are they usually grafted onto another type of fig rootstock, or are they on their own roots?
I ask because I’m liking the idea of a fig bush, so I want to know if I can keep the suckers that come up from the roots.
Thanks all!
Lizzy
Triazicide works! So does Surround.
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I’d love to go with Surround next year.
Is anyone using acetamiprid? Apparently it has curative activity, too (at least in tart cherries and blueberries). I used the more toxic (to bees) imidacloprid but got some of the Ortho acetamiprid concentrate and will go with that this year now that I’m infected 
I’ll spray earlier next year for sure!
Acetamiprid is supposed to be less toxic to bees than most of what’s being used (except Surround), if I’m reading various charts right. That’s why I’m interested in anyone’s use of it and how it really works in practice.
Acetamiprid does seem to have some kickback. I’ve used it for a couple of years now with good success. But I don’t break it out until all the trees are past bloom. The bees are very attracted to the neonicontines - it’s not so much the toxicity iirc but the attraction that gets them.
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T C M,
I am using Malathion Spectracide once and done every 7 days this year. I sprayed twice already and will respray after each raining day this Spring. So far I must have killed lots of PCs walking around on the branches and cut the population down because I haven’t seen any bite marks yet. I think 14 days is a little far apart. Drew told me that Malathion has the power to kill PCs within 30 hours on contact.
Tony