Q. I have a small home orchard with apples, pears, peaches and plums. So far, I have not had much luck harvesting edible fruit. Can you provide me with a basic spray schedule for a home fruit orchard?
A. While there is nothing like the satisfaction and quality of harvesting fruit from a home orchard, it is important to realize that tree fruits are not fail proof. Tree fruits require realistic expectations, considerable expertise and time. Realistic expectations in a home orchard should include the possibility of more failures than successes. Expertise is needed not only to manage the fruit trees but also to identify and manage pests. Tree fruits take time; management and monitoring of fruit trees require attention year round and pest management often requires precise timing to be successful.
Tree fruits have a large number of potential pests. For many of the common tree fruits (apples, pears, and peaches), this amounts to dozens of possible pests. While some pests are more common than others, successful pest management requires knowing what specific pests are present in the home orchard. Without knowing the specific pests present, a spray schedule is difficult to recommend. Specific pests vary by fruit type, location, and site-specific conditions.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a holistic approach to pest management. IPM uses a series of science-based steps to help make informed management decisions. The steps of IPM can help a home orchardist organize the information by which an informed management plan and spray schedule for the home orchard can be created.
The first step in IPM is proper identification. The pest must be correctly identified to implement the proper management strategy. With such a large number of potential insect and disease pests, correct identification of a problem can be a challenge. An example of the importance of proper identification in apples is the problem of wormy fruit. Wormy fruit can be caused by several pests including plum curculio, codling moth, and apple maggot. While these pests can cause wormy fruit, expertise is needed to recognize the specific insect causing the damage. Once properly identified, the insect’s biology can be researched and the timing of management strategies identified.
The second step of IPM is monitoring. Monitoring includes a regular checking of the plants and requires both time and expertise. Time must be dedicated to the careful observation and expertise is required to know what, where and when to look for specific pests. Monitoring often includes the use of traps. The red sticky sphere used in apples is a good example. This trap is used to monitor apple maggot activity, which informs the timing of control tactics.
The third step is knowing thresholds. A threshold is the point at which a pest population reaches an intolerable level. Different pests have different thresholds. Some pests, such as plum curculio and apple maggot, have low thresholds because these pests cause injury that results in crop losses, while other problems such as the diseases sooty blotch and fly speck are often tolerated in the home orchard. These diseases blemish fruit and commercially the blemishes would make them unmarketable, but in the home orchard blemishes can be tolerated. In the home orchard, realistic expectations should include fruit that have blemishes.
The fourth step is control tactics. Control tactics include the management options implemented to keep a pest from reaching an intolerable level. IPM focuses on using cultural and biological controls and relying on pesticides only when absolutely necessary. In the home orchard, cultural control aspects include using disease resistant cultivars and keeping fruit trees healthy and stress free. Biological control often focuses on promoting beneficial insects by providing habitat and resources such as a pollinator garden. Unfortunately, many of the pests that attack fruit trees can not be managed successfully with just cultural and biological controls. Therefore, pesticides are often needed. When choosing a pesticide, choose the least toxic material that will do the job and be safe for beneficial insects. Be aware that pesticides often require precise timing to be effective and timing is often based on tree phenology.
Keep detailed records. The information you collect will be the information that will enable you to create a spray schedule specific to the pests you have in your home orchard.
Apple Calendar for Southern New England, Southern New York, and Northern New Jersey
Copied from Management Guide for Low-Input Sustainable Apple Production, a publication of the United States Department of Agriculture Northeast Low-Input Sustainable Agriculture Apple Production Project and Cornell University, Rodale Research Center, Rutgers University, University of Massachusetts, and University of Vermont.
Other useful resources
Russ Norton, Agriculture & Horticulture Extension Educator, Cape Cod Cooperative Extension
