Hi. As I’m sure most of you have noticed, the Japanese Beetles have arrived. We have been dealing with them in every fruit crop with the exception of our apples. The blackberries are currently being consumed by them despite a well-timed spray last week. Fire blight continues to show up in our orchard. We are[Read More…]
Apples
For those growing apples with organic or “softer” pesticide programs, you might spot signs and symptoms of a hungry caterpillar that prefers to attack apple leaves and fruit: the redbanded leafroller (Figure 1). This particular apple pest is more often a problem in orchards where conventional insecticide sprays are not used. This season, I have[Read More…]
Hi! Small fruits are beginning to ripen here. Raspberries are in full swing, our earliest blackberries have 1 or 2 ripe fruit, and a few plums are ready. Pest wise, we have been seeing damage from moth larva on a few of our plums. Things are going well otherwise. We are continuing to remove trees[Read More…]
Hello! It’s been a wet and cool couple of weeks. Sprays in both the orchard and vineyard have been pushed back because of this and our limited time frame for planting vegetable crops. Hopefully we can get back on schedule this week. It has been ideal weather conditions for some fungal pathogens, so we will[Read More…]
The window for chemical thinning is rapidly closing in many parts of the state. Carbaryl can be effective up to 20 mm fruit diameter. After this stage, options become limited and we’re in a “rescue thinning” approach. Below is some information from Penn State University on rescue thinning options: Rescue Thinning Options – 20mm and[Read More…]
Hi! This week’s crop conditions are looking quite good despite not having any significant rain recently. Most crops have set fruit and are progressing well. The grapes received their second spray this season on the 9th. This is a busy time here at Meigs as we make raised beds for our vegetable crops and prepare[Read More…]
Hello! This is our third crop conditions update this season. The fruit trees are progressing well as things get up and going around the farm. Most everything has passed 1 or more stages of growth since the third week of this month. Monday the 28th marked our first fungicide application in the vineyard, with the[Read More…]
Once flowers open in the spring, we’re hoping for warmer weather so the bees will transfer pollen and for rapid pollen tube growth. As we all know, apples require cross pollination, so for example Golden Delicious pollen will not fertilize Golden Delicious flowers. We rely on bees and other insects to transfer pollen from one[Read More…]
We’re getting close to the time when growers need to make chemical thinning decisions – for many the most perplexing and risky decision they will make all year. This is usually a tricky call to make, even more so when we have had spring frosts. Luckily in most places the spring frosts have not been[Read More…]