Carpenter trees

Canopy is racing to close in the inter-row space! At this rate, we may have complete shade between rows in two years, or three I think!

Spray schedule for Peaches: PART II

Here it is:

ALTICOR -- Oriental Fruit Moth (these moths are hard to get rid of, apparently!)
PMZ Plus -- Foliar Nutrient/Buffer (yep, this would be a second application)

It's not all. In case it rains before harvest we keep Orbit on hand, if it is not used it is returned to Mid-Valley.

ORBIT -- Fruit Brown Rot (See pic)
PRO 90 -- Spreader (It helps the spray "spread" properly. Just an anti-foaming agent that improves wetting of foliage).

Spray schedule for Peaches: PART I

Finalized spray schedule with Elsa. It was a lot to process for me. I highly respect her for her passion and knowledge. She knows  her peach farming. Lots of new stuff that I didn't know before..

PART 1:

1. Silencer - Oriental Fruit Moth
2. PMZ Plus - Foliar Nutrient/Buffer
3. Micro Sulfur - Mildew control
4. Potassium Nitrate - Foliar Nutrient

Here is a pic of the major pests of cling peaches (which is all what we grow).  Oriental fruit moth in the upper left, and peach twig borer, left middle. These pests can bore into the terminal of the leaf, lower left, and cause it to wither and die, right.

Nuts looking pretty nutty

Which is a good news to us.

We love clean row-middles.

Clusters of green almonds:

Some people love eating green almonds. In the middle-eastern countries, I heard, green almonds are dipped in sea salt and eaten as a snack. Some other people I know swear by the health benefits of eating green almonds. I gave it a try, but it's probably an acquired taste. But, if you break it and just eat the developing almond inside, it tastes exactly like a piece of "sugar palm fruit" if you know what it is.

Hull split has not begun yet:

Frost damaged all smaller peach fruit. Not good news.

It wasn't even a lot of frost in the first place. It has damaged the smallest of the fruit. Goes to show how delicate peaches are, I guess. In checking the orchard, we believe that the damage at this point is minimal. 

But of course, we will continue to check for frost damage. Frost is insidious. We ll never know the exact amount of damage done until fruit develops.

We like to give frequent showers for Peaches..

You know I am talking about weed sprays..

Here we go with a long list of weed sprays. I honestly feel like we going overboard in killing weeds. Note to myself: Research more and talk to people. But, for now, we will go ahead with Elsa and Gary Layne's recommendations.

ASC Plus -- Buffer Activator
Alecto -- Grass Killer
Galigan -- Broad leaf Killer
Pro 90 -- Surfactant (This is like a toner in make-up cosmetics!)
Magnesium EDTA -- Micro Nutrient
Soil Bor -- Micro Nutrient (Water soluble form of Boron)

Here are some common weeds in our orchards that we are trying to spray the above to get rid of. Click the images for larger views.

Puncture-vine (We call it "palleru" in india):

prickly lettuce:

hairy fleabane:

hare barley:

bermuda grass:

horseweed:

Drinks table for Peaches looks like..

The following:

1. Pristine $39.72/ac
Technically, Nufarm Pristine fungicide -- For the control of blackspot (scab), powdery mildew, etc.

2. Western Mix $ 7.05/ac
For the correction of micronutrient deficiencies. Has sulfur, iron, manganese and zinc.

3. Pro 90 $ 1.62/ac
Surfactant. Increases the surface area of application spray.

Rain is expected next week, as a precaution we will be spraying all those at Whitmore. Oh well.. This is the last year of peaches..

Black spot on peaches looks like this:

Powdery mildew on fruit: