June sprays 2: APOLLO for Mite Control

It doesn't hurt to repeat it. No matter what spray we use on our orchards, it is HIGHLY imperative that they do not harm bees or natural enemy populations of target organism.

APOLLO acts by inhibiting of the respiratory system development in the mites eggs, preventing hatching and thus further mite infestation of crops. 

APOLLO is highly selective not detrimental to bees as well as beneficial insects and predatory mites like Black Ladybird Beetle (cool name for a bug, right?).

Here are spider mites on peach leaves.

June sprays 1: ALTACOR for Peach Twig Borer (PTB)

This is one of the sprays Gary and Elsa suggested we apply to Peach trees.

In spring, PTB larvae bore into buds and developing shoots causing them to wilt and die. Larvae of the summer generations attack the fruit, usually making several entry holes near the stem end. Damaged fruit and twigs exude gum. See the pictures below.

So, meet ALTACOR.

ALTACOR controls Peach Twig Borer (PTB) and Oriental Fruit Moth (OFM). Apparently, this is highly selective and is perfectly safe for honeybees and other beneficial bugs.

Young peach..

Thinning peaches..

Imagine you go to each peach tree. Look at the clusters of developing fruit. Nip some of them and throw them away on the ground. That's thinning.

What a disturbing concept, right? Why would anyone throw away some fruit? That's what I thought when I first heard of Thinning. And on top of that, you pay workers to do this?

But, fruit thinning is a crucial step in consistently producing good quality fruit.
Here's a sales lesson:
6 extra-large peaches sell better than 24 extra-small peaches. ALWAYS.
So, what do you do? Nip away 18 peaches in a cluster so the tree can focus its energy towards growing the remaining 6 fruit into nice, extra-large peaches.

Fruit trees will often set more fruit than is needed for a full crop. Several undesirable things can happen.

• Excessive weight from the fruit can cause tree limbs to break. 
• Excessive fruit set often will result in small fruit with poor flavor. 
• Excessive fruit set also can result in alternate bearing in which a tree will produce little or no fruit in the year following a large fruit crop.

So, it's all right to pick and throw away all that fruit.

Taking a break! But work goes on!!

Spring!

21-0-0. It's all about Nitrogen.

It's time to fertilize peach orchard.

We are going with fertilizer 21-0-0. It's just Ammonium Sulphate, primarily adds Nitrogen to the soil.

All fertilizer have a label in the form of N-P-K (Nitrogen- Phosphorus- Potassium).

21-0-0 is 21% nitrogen with some amount of micro-nutrient sulfur.

Did you know that about 80 percent of the air you breathe is nitrogen? It's true. In fact, every acre of land in the world is covered by thousands of tons of Nitrogen. Not an ounce of that N can be used by crop plants until it is changed by natural processes or by commercial fertilizer production. Through various processes of 'fixation,' gaseous atmospheric N is changed to a plant-usable forms: ammonium and nitrate.

Nitrogen is essential to promote vegetative growth as it is a crucial part of chlorophyll. More nitrogen means more chlorophyll. More chlorophyll means more photosynthesis. More photosynthesis means more growth, more fruit. As simple as that.

As per the Sulphate part of 21-0-0, when fertilizers containing elemental sulfur are added to soils, microorganisms in the soil convert it to sulfate-sulfur which is the only form plants can consume. Sulfur is used up in making plant proteins. I think..