Category: Tree Fruit

Video from the orchard this week: https://youtu.be/P1K7XWlg35M Champlain Valley and other warm site orchards are approaching full petal fall, so there are a lot of decisions to make in the days ahead. Hopefully everyone with any hint of risk for fire blight treated sometime late last week or over the weekend, orchards in bloom may…

I’ll follow up with more details later- this announcement is meant as a notice in case anyone like myself needs to get their hands on some streptomycin today- but the NEWA fire blight models are predicting increasing likelihood of infection over the weekend as temperatures climb. If you have open blooms, be prepared to cover…

The cool weather is leading to a number of conditions in Vermont apples. Where trees are in some state of bloom, blossoms are opening very slowly. This is extending the overall bloom period. But also helping to maintain viability of pollen, styles, and stigma. It may be taking a while for pollination to happen, but…

Trees at the UVM orchard in South Burlington are at early to late pink bud stage and we expect bloom to start this coming week. This is go-time for setting the crop for 2024, and there are a lot of considerations to take into account as we make management decisions. First- pest management. This looks…

Jim Wargo from Valent U.S.A. passed these recommendations on for growers considering using Promalin on frost-affected trees. These make horticultural sense to me, and Jim highlights the limitations well. -TB Promalin: What to do when freeze events occur at tight cluster to pink Apples at tight cluster to early pink are more tolerant to cold…

I don’t have a lot more to say than I said last time- if you’re expecting rain, expect to protect your orchard from apple scab. We are entering the accelerated phase of primary apple scab season now, and given how wet it was last year I expect there is a fair amount of inoculum out…

SPRING ORCHARD PEST AND POLLINATOR SHOWCASE Offered at two locations: Sweetland Farm 97 Kerwin Hill Road, Norwich, VT 05055 Thursday May 9, 2024 from 4:30-7:00pm UVM Horticulture Research and Education Center (HREC) and Catamount Educational Farm 65 Green Mountain Drive, South Burlington, VT 05403 Friday May 10, 2024 from 4:30 to 7:00pm Join the Vermont…

Good morning: The NEWA system that most of us rely on for pest models and forecasting is not importing data from any stations right now because the data centers at the National Weather Service that process the data are experiencing outages. Until it is back up, we’ll need to rely on some rules of thumb…

At this time of the year, we should always be keeping an eye on the weather in the week ahead, and the shift toward warmer temperatures this week means that we may be seeing the first signs of green tissue on trees in many sites in Vermont. Green tip indicates the beginning of the growing…