It was a great feeling when the last tree was pruned and the equipment was cleaned and stored in the maintenance building. A long haul this pruning season, not only with trimming the trees but also the challenge of orchard clean up. Looking at the rows of trees, now neatly pruned, debris on the orchard floor, raked and mulched, gives us a great sense of accomplishment. You’d have to own an orchard to truly understand the good feeling. The orchard is truly, “looking good.”
The next step will be application of the dormant spray. Application of the dormant oil spray is probably one of the most important of the season. It is safe, nontoxic and even a home orchardist can apply it to his apple trees. Dormant oil is mixed at a two percent (2%) rate. So for instance if you have 100 gallons of water, you need to mix 2 gallons of dormant oil. Applications should be made when temperatures are above 50 degrees, before and up to when the trees are “green tipped.” Green tip occurs when the bud opens and green tissue starts growing. The purpose of a dormant season nontoxic spray is to kill and minimize mites and microscopic insects that have “overwintered” on the fruit tree. The application of horticultural oil will smother these insects as they make their way out of their winter dormancy and start their crawling activity on the trees. San Jose scale is the most common and the most damaging of the scales found in apple orchards. Dormant season treatments are the key in controlling this pest. San Jose scale infest the apple branches and if not controlled cause red halos or spots on the fruit. The red halos or spots are remains of their feeding area and makes fruit unattractive, especially green and yellow apples.
Our peach trees do not look as if they have any live fruit bud. The sub zero temperatures that we experienced in this area during the Christmas holidays killed the fruit bud. The trees are fine, there’s leaf bud, but no fruit bud. Without fruit bud, no development of peaches.