This edition of our newsletter was written by UVM PhD student Bethany Pelletier. You can expect more from her this season. While I have you, I’d like to promote the Cold Climate Viticulture course Bethany and I will be teaching at UVM this summer. We haven’t finalized this year’s syllabus, but you can see the 2023 syllabus here. This course is only offered in alternate years, so will not be available again until 2027. Please reach out to me if you have any specific questions about it.-TB

Spring has sprung in Burlington Vermont! Here in South Burlington, some of our earliest varieties like Marquette and Foch are looking pretty close to bud burst. Here are some things we should all be thinking about around this exciting time of year;

Our first line of defense for ALL growers is going to be good pruning and sanitation techniques. We should all be just about pruned up by now, but it’s never a bad idea to do another vineyard walk and make sure you didn’t miss a vine or two. Taking the extra time to clear out any dead wood or at least flail mow to break it apart will make a HUGE difference in the presence of our early season fungal pathogens like black rot and Phomopsis. Be sure to discard this material far away from the vineyard, not just at the end of a row.

As buds reach 1-2” height it will be time to shoot thin. We want to take it down to 3-6 shoots per foot of canopy, ideally keeping the primary shoots where possible. Many of our cold climate varieties like to push out their secondary shoots alongside the primaries (as pictured below, the primary is the larger shoot coming out at an angle). We should try to favor the primary shoots as they will have more flowers and generally develop into a stronger cane. This is also the best time to flick off any buds coming up on the trunk that we don’t want for future replacements, as these can REALLY gum up the airflow of the canopy. Shoot thinning is another IPM tactic that will make a huge difference in your disease defense regardless of your pesticide strategy. A cramped and crowded canopy will make a dark and humid microclimate, encouraging more mildews later in the season. In addition, more shoots will mean far more labor for you down the road when it comes time to shoot thin; much more pleasant to knock some shoots down while they’re still young and small!

UW Fruit Program

While proper pruning, sanitation, and shoot thinning will always be your first line of defense in the vineyard, we should all still be thinking about our pesticide management plan for the season. Pesticide orders should be placed by now, and spray equipment cleaned and calibrated. For all growers, but in particular those that use live biopesticides, be sure to check expiration and efficacy dates on your materials. Biopesticides and many organic pesticides often should be replaced yearly for maximum efficacy.

For the first time in my years as a student at UVM I am seeing some notable numbers of flea beetles. I’ll attach a picture here, they may look familiar to you already!

Tom Zabadal. MSU College of Agriculture

I am not too concerned about these at the moment, given that bud swell is progressing fairly rapidly so these little guys will only have a few more days to get any bites in. But if for whatever reason our bud development stalls out, we may want to consider some sort of control. If this happens to any of y’all please poke our fruit team for some management options.

Now that pruning is over and the vineyard is looking nice and neat, it can be easy to forget just how essential these early weeks are for disease prevention. Cold climate cultivars are typically not in need of pesticide intervention until about 5-8” of growth. However, if you are an organic grower or had bad early season disease last year you may want to start putting down some protection sooner! In the UVM vineyard we have both conventional areas and ‘organic’, so I am already planning my future sprays. Here are some tried and true suggestions from our own Dr. Bradshaw;

“The primary disease of concern at this point is phomopsis, as rachis infection at this point in the season may cause significant fruit loss at harvest. Anthracnose may also be active at this point , given the warm/hot weather are expecting later this week. Vineyards that have had recent problems with those diseases or organic growers using copper or other less-effective materials may consider treating this week; if you haven’t had major problems with those diseases, treatment can wait until the 5-8” growth stage as long as you are using a highly effective contact fungicide like mancozeb or captan. Organic growers are in for a bit more work. The standard fungicides, copper and sulfur, have only fair efficacy against this disease at best.

It is worth noting that both copper and sulfur (including lime sulfur) can cause phytotoxicity on certain cultivars. Dr. Patty McManus summarized her research on copper and sulfur sensitivity in cold-hardy grapes in the 2/8/16 Northern Grapes newsletter, and I’ll summarize it to say that Brianna should receive no copper; and Frontenac (all types), La Crescent, Leon Millot, Marechal Foch, Marquette, and St. Croix should receive no more than 2-3 copper sprays per season. Save those for later when black rot and downy mildew become bigger concerns. Sulfur sensitivity was observed on several cultivars, and its use (including lime sulfur) is discouraged on Foch, Millot, Brianna, and Louise Swenson; with limited (2-3) applications suggested on LaCrescent and St. Croix.” -T. Bradshaw, 2024

I believe that’s all for now folks! I wish you all the best of luck this growing season, and fingers crossed that this lovely warm weather stays with us through bud break! I’ll be back again soon with disease outlooks and funny stories from our own vineyard.

Best,
Bethany Pelletier & UVM Fruit Lab

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, UVM Extension, USDA NIFA E-IPM Program, and USDA Risk Management Agency.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. University of Vermont Extension, Burlington, Vermont. University of Vermont Extension, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating, offer education and employment to everyone without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or familial status.

Where trade names or commercial products are used for identification, no discrimination is intended and no endorsement is implied. Always read the label before using any pesticide. The label is the legal document for the product use. Disregard any information in this message if it is in conflict with the label.

Vermont orchards are generally at green tip bud stage for the coolest locations in the state to tight cluster in warmer locations. Apple scab continues to be the primary pest management consideration of concern. I recommend maintaining a protectant fungicide and, given the off and on wetting of the last few days that has likely resulted in an extended infection period for most orchards, a single site fungicide with kickback activity such as those in FRCAC codes 3, 7, 9, or 11 (remember to rotate these chemistries to avoid development of fungicide resistance). Weather for spraying conditions has been all over the place this week with high winds on many days. It seems the best time for extended low wind conditions appears to be Wednesday night through Thursday morning. We are expecting, fairly substantial rainfall on Friday, which should result in the next major infection period.

As we approach bloom, it is important to consider the potential for the development of fire blight. I recommend having one application of streptomycin on hand as we head inro the bloom period. Streptomycin is always best used in conjunction with a degree day based fire blight model. Strep is extremely effective against blossom light infections when applied within 24 hours of infection and where bacteria has not developed resistance to it (and I have not yet seen evidence of strep resistant bacteria in Vermont.) There are other measures that may be taken to reduce reliance on streptomycin or increase its efficacy. Some biological control materials, (e.g., Lifegard, Actigard, Regalia) are labeled as an act as systemic acquired resistance promoters. These materials act like a sort of vaccine that prompts the tree’s immune system to fight off fungal and bacterial infections after application. While the data do not show complete efficacy against devastating diseases like fire blight, recent work (1, 2) done in New York State by Kerik Cox and Anna Wallis shows that they have potential to control blossom and shoot light at levels between a non-treated control and a streptomycin application. Where you may have had fire blight problems in the past, the use of one of these materials prior to bloom (as in this week) may help to reduce disease incident if infection occurs. Unless you are under constraints as an organic grower, I still recommend using streptomycin if the models call for it in your orchard. However, for growers, who have faced substantial fireplace problems in the past, the use of these materials may be affective in helping to get the disease under control in this in future season. The evidence is also good for the efficacy of low-rate(3 oz/acre) prohexadione-calcium (e.g., Apogee, Kudos) applied at pink bud stage followed by four biweekly applications at 2 oz/acre in reducing shoot blight symptoms.

Now is the time to get pheromone baited traps up for monitoring lepidopteran (moth) pests. The one that we monitor for most closely and which most likely drives management decisions is codling moth. Pheromone baited traps should be hung one per acre block and should be located 50 feet or more from each other to reduce the attractive effects from one trap to another. Pheromone capsules are specific to the type of moth that you were trying to catch, so each trap should include only one capsule for only one particular moth. For codling moth, we hang traps prior to bloom and check them daily, especially during warm weather, and record the date of first moth capture. I posted a video to our YouTube channel of me assembling and hanging a CM trap yesterday. That date can be used in the NEWA degree day model to time spray application toward freshly laid eggs or hatching larva. It is this precision of timing and maximizing efficiency of pest control materials that allows growers to use relatively expensive, highly selective (not harmful to most beneficial insects), and worker safe materials in a cost-effective manner. This year at the UVM orchard we are using pheromone traps for codling moth, obliquebanded leafroller, dogwood borer, and oriental fruit moth.

Growers should also be checking European apple sawfly traps that were hung last week and making counts of trapped insects. In some years, EAS may require treatment prior to bloom. We try to avoid the use of any insecticides at this point in the year because wild pollinator populations are increasing and we want to reduce the likelihood of residues that wild and managed honeybee pollinators are exposed to when visiting flowers during bloom. High levels of sawfly could cause substantial fruit damage, especially when bloom, when we are prohibited from using any insecticides, is extended. In the unlikely event that a pre-Bloom insecticide is used, I recommend, a relatively short-lived material such as a pyrethroid, and do not at all recommend the use of neonicotinoid material which have a high likelihood of having toxic residues in pollen and nectar that are collected by pollinators during bloom.

It’s time to really think about getting your nitrogen and other fertilizers on as the trees will be rapidly developing tissues in the coming weeks. If you are using granular fertilizers, I recommend split applications and applying half pre-bloom and the other half in early to mid-June, being sure to complete all nitrogen applications before the end of June to reduce likelihood of winter injury in the following season. If you have not yet it is a good idea to apply boron and zinc foliar fertilizers to strengthen developing blossoms prior to bloom.

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, UVM Extension, USDA NIFA E-IPM Program, and USDA Risk Management Agency.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. University of Vermont Extension, Burlington, Vermont. University of Vermont Extension, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating, offer education and employment to everyone without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or familial status.

Where trade names or commercial products are used for identification, no discrimination is intended and no endorsement is implied. Always read the label before using any pesticide. The label is the legal document for the product use. Disregard any information in this message if it is in conflict with the label.

The recent warm weather has advanced apple bud stages significantly — we are at the half-inch green stage at UVM HREC and continued warm weather should keep things moving. I recorded a video at the orchard yesterday showing the bud development at the farm and discussing the need for disease management this week. Thankfully, there is no cold weather in the ten-day forecast, but there looks to be a pretty good rain / wetting event starting intermittently on Thursday but really getting going Friday afternoon and through Saturday. Wind conditions look decent to good in the next few days, so growers should consider getting a protectant fungicide on as soon as reasonably possible. For inland and upland sires that have slower bud development and may still be at green or even silver tip, this may be a good time to put on your copper, for orchards in warmer sites, a more typical protectant is in order. If you can’t get in until after a few showers have already started wetting things, an early-season application of a material with some postinfection activity may help prevent infection from developing. We are planning to treat the UVM orchard Friday morning with a combination of mancozeb and Vangard, the latter of which works better in relatively cooler weather and is not effective against fruit scab, and is therefore best used prebloom. Vangard has a FRAC code

of 9, which places it in the Anilino-Pyrimidine class of fungicides. These are not much used at other times in the season, and thus are easily rotated with other chemistries (i.e., materials with a different FRAC number) as we make our way through scab season. The New England Tree Fruit Management Guide includes a good list of recommendations for reducing the development of fungicide resistance in your orchard:

• Use a sanitation program to reduce inoculum.

• Use a multi-site fungicide in every spray – FRAC groups M3 and M4 – captan, mancozeb or metiram.

• Change site-specific fungicides – FRAC groups 3, 7, 9 and 11.

• Use at least three active ingredients from three different FRAC groups over primary scab season.

• If possible, do not use any one class of single-site fungicide more than twice in a season. For many fungicides, labels limit applications to no more than 4 per season.

• Whenever possible fungicides should be applied preventatively, before infection periods. Labels may suggest post-infection uses, but these should be used only as a last resort.

• Apply the maximum label rate of single-site fungicides.

• Pre-mix fungicides containing two single-site ingredients – Merivon, Luna Sensation and Luna Tranquility – should still be mixed with a multi-site fungicide.

• Each ingredient in a pre-mix fungicide counts as an application. For example, Luna Sensation with both fluopyram (FRAC group 7) and trifloxystrobin (FRAC group 11) would count as an application of a Group 7 and an application of a Group 11.

For growers who manage tarnished plant bug in their orchards, white sticky traps should be up in your orchard now. We posted a video last year showing trap setup and placement. The next traps to go up should be European apple sawfly, using those same white traps hung at head height just a bit before pink bud stage. A basic apple scouting guide can be found here. It’s a large format 11×17 pdf file, but also prints fine on 8.5×11 paper.

Now (half-inch green through pink bud stage) is a good time to think about applying a foliar nutrient tonic to help developing buds as bloom approaches. A combination of nitrogen, boron, and zinc is recommended and will help improve fruit set.

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, UVM Extension, USDA NIFA E-IPM Program, and USDA Risk Management Agency.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. University of Vermont Extension, Burlington, Vermont. University of Vermont Extension, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating, offer education and employment to everyone without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or familial status.

Where trade names or commercial products are used for identification, no discrimination is intended and no endorsement is implied. Always read the label before using any pesticide. The label is the legal document for the product use. Disregard any information in this message if it is in conflict with the label.

Join the University of Vermont Extension and Vermont Tree Fruit Grower’s Association at these hands-on field meetings at Yates Family Orchard in Monkton on May 8th and Wellwood Orchard in Springfield on May 9th from 4:30-6 p.m. We will discuss commercial tree fruit management practices, value added products, marketing, pest and disease updates, pollinators, and funding opportunities and challenges. This event is free and geared to commercial growers and people that work with them. Please see attached for more information. Light snacks will be provided.

Each meeting has been approved for 1 VT Pesticide recertification training credit for categories 1A, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, UVM Extension, USDA NIFA E-IPM Program, and USDA Risk Management Agency.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. University of Vermont Extension, Burlington, Vermont. University of Vermont Extension, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating, offer education and employment to everyone without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or familial status.

Where trade names or commercial products are used for identification, no discrimination is intended and no endorsement is implied. Always read the label before using any pesticide. The label is the legal document for the product use. Disregard any information in this message if it is in conflict with the label.

2025-spring-tree-fruit-twilight-meeting (003).pdf

I am trying out some 21st-century technology this week. First, I dictated my message while on my commute (with light editing), so the ‘writing’ style and length may be a bit different than folks are used to. Second, I recorded an update from the UVM orchard and placed on our YouTube channel. I intend to get one of those out on a fairly regular basis. Feedback is always welcome.-TB

Green tip bud stage was reached on McIntosh apples at the UVM Horticulture Research and Education Center in South Burlington today. This means that the active management season for apples has begun at our farm and likely has on many other farms around the area. Most farms in lower elevation warmer sites will see green tip by the end of the week; many upland sites may see it a bit after that. This stage is important because it signifies that there is susceptible tissue that can be affected by apple scab fungus. The fungus that causes apple scab and the apple tree co-evolved such that their early season lifecycles are very much in sync. The degree day model that we use to predict ascospore maturity and release starts at green tip on McIntosh and continues for roughly 900 degree days (base 32°F) after that. After this amount of accumulation has been reached, assuming normal conditions in the northeast regarding rainfall and humidity, we can assume that the overwintering inoculum for the apple scab disease has matured and will be released in rainfalls that occur during that period.

Under older conditions, growers were encouraged to maintain protective fungicide coverage from green tip through the end of ascospore release which commonly occurred around early to mid-June. However, a number of things have changed. The ability to closely monitor ascospore development and infection conditions using models such as those in the NEWA system allows us to better time our fungicide applications and reduce unnecessary, prophylactic treatments. We also have seen the bacterial disease fire blight increase in incidence in New England in the past 20 years. Fire blight can be considered essentially ubiquitous in the environment at this point, although it does not always reach infective potential many orchards. One of the key management techniques targeted toward fire blight is a delayed dormant application of a copper-based fungicide, which helps to reduce inoculum on the surface of plant tissues. This treatment, while technically still a chemical, is a relatively weak apple scab fungicide. However, the typically lower levels of mature ascospores, low amount of susceptible tissue exposed in the early season, and relatively cool temperatures experienced in early spring have typically lead growers to utilize this first fire blight management spray as their initial apple scab fungicide. If scab was relatively well-managed in your orchard last year, an application of a copper fungicide at full label rates should be sufficient to manage the disease for the next 7-10 days as long as it is applied before one quarter inch of green tissue is showing when looking at fruit buds from the side. That means there should be no leaves exposed from the emerging buds. Application of copper too late in the bud development can cause significant fruit russeting that can reduce the market value of your crop. This is an ideal week to treat orchard in the warmer production areas in the states with copper.

I have recently observed high levels of mites or scale insects in many orchards and how much of this due to reduction in the use of dormant or delayed dormant oil applications. While treating your trees with copper fungicide, it would be a good idea to include horticultural oil at a rate of 2% by solution (2 gallons in 100 gallons of actual spray material applied to the trees). Oil should be applied with very thorough coverage; I recommend 100 gallons of water per acre to fully saturate the trees. Oil works by physically smothering eggs and developing overwintering scale insects and therefore must thoroughly cover them to have affect. Oil should not be applied to orchards within 48 hours before or after a freeze event. Again, weather this week is conducive to oil application for most of the stakes, as we are not seeing significant risk of frost or freeze for the rest of the week.

Things tend to be pretty quiet on the insect front in this early season. Some growers may choose to hang white sticky cards at knee height in their orchard at about four traps per 10 acre block to monitor for tarnished plant bug. However, the vast majority of orchards in Vermont sell their fruit as pick-your-own or direct farmstand sales, and in my opinion TPB damage is insignificant and strictly cosmetic that should not need management for those that sell through those direct markets. For other farms that sell to wholesale markets, TPB can significantly reduce fruit quality that could lead to rejected fruit, so it may be managed on those farms. I recommend hanging TPB traps after the application of any copper fungicides in order to reduce the amount of spray that could make it difficult to read traps or make them less attractive to the insect. Pre-Bloom insecticide application for TBP may be warranted if there are more than three bugs per trap trapped in any given week. In order to reduce the likelihood of residues toxic to pollinators in apple pollen, I do not recommend the use of neonicotinoid insecticides (IRAC group 4A) prior to bloom. That leaves pyrethroid insecticides as the primary class that is typically used to manage TPB and other pre-bloom insects.

This is the perfect time to be preparing your soil and planting trees. When trees are planted in spring, growth in the first year is significantly better if planted during cool weather when roots are allowed to get established in soil before there is significant leaf and shoot development and therefore water and nutrient demand from the top of the tree. Ideally, apple trees should be planted by May 15, and certainly by the middle of June. For all new trees, whether on dwarf or semidwarf rootstock, irrigation should be immediately applied even if only only as a good thorough soaking from the water tank.

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, UVM Extension, USDA NIFA E-IPM Program, and USDA Risk Management Agency.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. University of Vermont Extension, Burlington, Vermont. University of Vermont Extension, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating, offer education and employment to everyone without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or familial status.

Where trade names or commercial products are used for identification, no discrimination is intended and no endorsement is implied. Always read the label before using any pesticide. The label is the legal document for the product use. Disregard any information in this message if it is in conflict with the label.

I think burying my call for folks interested in receiving traps for orchard monitoring at the bottom of my first email last week left it unseen, so I’m resending on its own.

Scouting season is almost here in Vermont orchards. We have some funds available to distribute traps to growers around the state to help track pest incidence and better guide our recommendations to growers. If you are interested in contributing to the scouting program, fill out this interest form at here: https://forms.office.com/r/7QRfXfHqsd

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, UVM Extension, USDA NIFA E-IPM Program, and USDA Risk Management Agency.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. University of Vermont Extension, Burlington, Vermont. University of Vermont Extension, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating, offer education and employment to everyone without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or familial status.

Where trade names or commercial products are used for identification, no discrimination is intended and no endorsement is implied. Always read the label before using any pesticide. The label is the legal document for the product use. Disregard any information in this message if it is in conflict with the label.

Good morning:

The growing season just keeps getting closer, I am calling today as the start of silver tip in McIntosh trees at the UVM Horticulture Research and Education Center. That means that the need for regular pest management is right on our doorstep.

For decades, the UMASS Fruit IPM program published the ‘March Message’ under the direction of the late Dr. Ron Prokopy. Since Dr. Jaime Piñero returned to the program in 2019, he has revived that old tradition. The Message contains a succinct and science-based summary of research, recommendations, and considerations to help growers navigate the year to come. It’s an excellent resource and I highly recommend reading it here: 33rd Annual March Message. Big thanks to the UMASS Extension Fruit Program for their work on this and allowing it to be distributed.

-Terry

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, UVM Extension, USDA NIFA E-IPM Program, and USDA Risk Management Agency.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. University of Vermont Extension, Burlington, Vermont. University of Vermont Extension, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating, offer education and employment to everyone without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or familial status.

Where trade names or commercial products are used for identification, no discrimination is intended and no endorsement is implied. Always read the label before using any pesticide. The label is the legal document for the product use. Disregard any information in this message if it is in conflict with the label.

My longtime colleague and predecessor in this Extension role, Lorraine Berkett, always used to stress that “the growing season starts April 1”. By that she didn’t mean that we should be firing up sprayers by April Fools’ Day— although in one year I did make my first copper application to the orchard on March 30— but rather that we should have our ducks in a row and be ready for active management by the beginning of the month. The Second False Spring of last week has led to Fourth Winter this week, but the trend is looking like we’re heading for a ‘normal’ spring wakeup, so a ‘ready by April’ warning is still in-play.

I am writing a joint orchard-vineyard bulletin today because the things we need to consider are largely the same at this time of year. Pruning should be wrapping up in apples, and it’s time to push out or better yet flail mow prunings to facilitate sprayer and other equipment access. There’s still time to prune grapes, and peaches should be pruned during bloom so you’re looking at May for those if you have them. Where possible, I prefer to flail mow prunings and leave the debris in the orchard, as that is organic matter that is valuable for soil health and I am not convinced that, as long as debris is sufficiently shredded, that it contributes to disease inoculum. One exception may be in orchards that have more than incidental fire blight. If you don’t have a flail mower, the brush is too big to go through the mower, or you are concerned about disease inoculum, then you may push brush into the burn pile and deal with it that way. Whatever you do, it needs to get out of the way soon.

Once the brush is out of the way, or even with it on the ground if it’s small stuff, it is good to make a final pass with the flails set real low to shred leaf and other debris to reduce disease inoculum and overwintering insect pests. This can produce measurable decreases in apple scab and grape black rot inoculum that can make you early season disease management much more effective. Another option is to apply a urea solution (UMASS recommends 44 lb urea in 100 gal of water) at a rate of 100 gallons per acre to the orchard floor, being sure to spray into the tree row where it can be hard to mow the leaves. Good orchard sanitation and a scab-free season the year before can allow growers to delay the first one or two scab sprays.

Sprayers should be brought out tested, calibrated, then re-winterized to be ready for first applications of the season. In apples, we’ll be putting on oil and copper in the next couple of weeks. In grapes, growers may consider applying lime sulfur to pruned dormant vines to reduce overwintering disease inoculum. I’ll have details on both of those practices as the need gets closer.

In the Champlain Valley, fields can be prepared for planting this spring. We are installing a new orchard at UVM HREC later in April, and have a field that we plowed and harrowed last fall to incorporate cover crop, and are in the process of liming and discing to adjust soil pH and build up calcium levels that will be necessary for optimal (and bitter pit free) fruit production.

Scouting season is almost here in Vermont orchards. We have some funds available to distribute traps to growers around the state to help track pest incidence and better guide our recommendations to growers. If you are interested in contributing to the scouting program, fill out this interest form at here: https://forms.office.com/r/7QRfXfHqsd

I look forward to working together for another season.

-Terry

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, UVM Extension, USDA NIFA E-IPM Program, and USDA Risk Management Agency.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. University of Vermont Extension, Burlington, Vermont. University of Vermont Extension, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating, offer education and employment to everyone without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or familial status.

Where trade names or commercial products are used for identification, no discrimination is intended and no endorsement is implied. Always read the label before using any pesticide. The label is the legal document for the product use. Disregard any information in this message if it is in conflict with the label.

I am sharing this update from the state Natural Resources Conservation Service office that Vern Grubinfger recently posted to his Vegetable and Berry Newsletter. -TB

NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE UPDATE
Travis L. Thomason, State Conservationist, NRCS-Vermont

In alignment with White House directives, Secretary Rollins will honor contracts that were already made directly to farmers. Specifically, USDA is releasing funds for contracts under the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program, and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.

Producers who have existing conservation contracts (general or IRA, CSP or EQIP) should continue moving forward with implementation as originally planned. We have approval to work on and make payments on ALL existing producer’s contracts (EQIP, CSP, ACEP, RCPP [both general and IRA]).

Currently, there are no plans to close any Vermont NRCS offices. Vermont NRCS will continue to provide one-on-one, personalized advice and financial assistance and works with producers to help them reach their goals through voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs.

__

Terence Bradshaw (he/him)
Associate Professor, Specialty Crops

Chair, Dept of Agriculture, Landscape, and Environment
(formerly Plant and Soil Science)
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

University of Vermont
117/210 – Jeffords Hall | 63 Carrigan Dr
Burlington, VT 05405

(802) 922-2591 | tbradsha
https://go.uvm.edu/pssbradshaw

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My graduate student, Eli Wilson, is conducting a survey to assess the status of orchard planting systems and farm diversification among Vermont apple producers. This is the same survey that was done in real-time at the 2/21 Middlebury meeting. If you took it there, please ignore. -TB

https://go.uvm.edu/25orchardsurvey

Good afternoon. The UVM Fruit Program is conducting a survey to assess the state of the apple industry in Vermont in 2025. We are looking to gain insight into the direction that Vermont orchards are headed, as there have been new practices, cultivars, and rootstocks introduced over the past fifty years. As members of the VTFGA your knowledge and experience in these areas is very valuable to us.

It has been 14 years since we have done a comprehensive assessment of the state of Vermont’s orchard industry and we want to gauge grower’s satisfaction and future intentions around the dwarfing rootstocks, cultivars, and other aspects of growing, such as crop diversification and value-added products.

The information collected from this survey will be anonymous and will be made available as a public resource.

The responses from this survey will help us to gain a firm understanding of the direction the VT orchard industry is moving and will inform us of the action steps we need to take now as a university, as a research facility, and as a community resource, so that we are prepared with the experience and tools necessary to answer growers’ questions in the future.

Thank you,

Eli Wilson. M.S. student

https://go.uvm.edu/25orchardsurvey

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Terence Bradshaw (he/him)
Associate Professor, Specialty Crops

Chair, Dept of Agriculture, Landscape, and Environment
(formerly Plant and Soil Science)
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

University of Vermont
117/210 – Jeffords Hall | 63 Carrigan Dr
Burlington, VT 05405

(802) 922-2591 | tbradsha
https://go.uvm.edu/pssbradshaw

UVM Commercial Horticulture | UVM Fruit Blog
Horticulture Research and Education Center
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