Sue, I loved your IPM course. I savored every module. During the course I would take pages & pages of notes, the next day off I would go into my orchard and scout problems and, boy, do I have them. My orchard is on the northeast side of a stee...
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Sue, I loved your IPM course. I savored every module. During the course I would take pages & pages of notes, the next day off I would go into my orchard and scout problems and, boy, do I have them. My orchard is on the northeast side of a steep hill. I have three tiers about 150' long x 15' (+ -) wide. The first tier has 4 rows of grapes, second has about 30 different apple trees and the third has peaches, plums, and pears. The orchard is about 10 years old. Things were pretty good up until a few years ago. Some of the apple trees were too tall and a few fell over. Most of the fruit trees have disease & pest problems. That is when I turned to the internet. I thought the "bigger the better." So first I trimmed all the trees 50% - I know that is a lot of pruning but they really needed it.
Then I found Orchard People. It took me a while to start the class but when I did I loved it and hated it. Now I know my orchard has every pest, direct and indirect, fungal and bacterial. But now I have a game plan starting this winter with copper and dormant oil & in early spring from silver tip to fruit set. I made traps for peach tree borers, bought sticky traps , apple maggot balls, glue, and have my scouting kit ready for pest war.
Thank you
MIchael Giamo
Cedar Grove, NJ
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