{"id":1072,"date":"2018-05-10T06:15:06","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T10:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/2018\/05\/10\/thoughts-on-pest-management-at-pink-bud-stage-in-vermont-orchards\/"},"modified":"2018-05-10T06:15:06","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T10:15:06","slug":"thoughts-on-pest-management-at-pink-bud-stage-in-vermont-orchards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/2018\/05\/10\/thoughts-on-pest-management-at-pink-bud-stage-in-vermont-orchards\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on pest management at pink bud stage in Vermont orchards"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Terence Bradshaw<\/a><\/p>\n

Many Vermont orchards hit the pink bud stage yesterday, which is an important time for crop management. The main concerns should be: apple scab, fire blight, and early season tree nutrition.<\/p>\n

For apple scab<\/strong>, NEWA is predicting an infection period tonight and into Saturday, so orchards should be covered with a protectant fungicide. We\u2019re in peak scab season now, so vigilance is suggested. While applying fungicide, it wouldn\u2019t be a bad idea to apply the standard \u2018blossom boost foliar nutrient<\/strong> mix of nitrogen, zinc, and boron. Rates are dependent on the products used, and are intended to boost blossom vigor as the trees enter the stressful bloom period Dr. Wes Autio\u2019s (UMASS) recommendations for Prebloom Nutrient Applications for Apple Trees<\/a>: 3 lbs\/100 gallons (dilute equivalent<\/a>) urea; 1 lb\/100 gallon Solubor (or equivalent); and label rates of zinc chelate. Ground-applied or fertigated fertilizers can also start to go on any time now.<\/p>\n

On to fire blight<\/strong>. Remember that the disease requires a number of factors to cause infection: sufficient buildup of the bacterial population (a function of heat in the days prior to infection, known as epiphytic infection potential (EIP)); open wounds (or open blooms); rain or heavy dew to move the bacteria into infection sites; and sufficient heat at the time of infection for disease to occur. First, most orchards in Vermont did not have a serious, or any, fire blight issue last year, so overall inoculum is likely low. If you\u2019re one of the growers who had infection in 2016, maybe be a little more vigilant because there\u2019s the likelihood that you have a few extra cankers in the orchard that were missed during pruning. The EIP clock starts at bloom, but sufficient heat (like yesterday\u2019s) leading into it can increase populations. The infective EIP used in NEWA (or really, Cougarblight, which is the model NEWA uses) is 100, and orchards in the major parts of the state hovered around that number yesterday and today. However, note that the more conservative Maryblyt model showed lower EIP for South Burlington for yesterday and today, and an infection was considered unlikely.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s mainly because we don\u2019t have a single open bloom in South Burlington, so the model doesn\u2019t really apply. Where orchards have their earliest blooms (on Zestar or Gingergold maybe? What\u2019s the bloom status in Windham and Bennington counties?) going into today\u2019s wetting period, there is a chance of a fire blight infection period. However, the shift to cooler temperatures starting after tonight\u2019s front passage will lower EIP and reduce likelihood of infection. I still like to keep some streptomycin on-hand during bloom, but my gut feeling is that, except in very specific circumstances of high likelihood of inoculum carryover from previous infections and open blossoms going into today\u2019s rain, there is no need to treat at this time.<\/p>\n

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Always read the label before using any pesticide.<\/p>\n

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label.<\/p>\n

The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the<\/p>\n

University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, a USDA NIFA E-IPM<\/p>\n

Grant, and USDA Risk Management Agency Funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Terence Bradshaw Many Vermont orchards hit the pink bud stage yesterday, which is an important time for crop management. The main concerns should be: apple scab, fire blight, and early season tree nutrition. For apple scab, NEWA is predicting an infection period tonight and into Saturday, so orchards should be covered with a protectant … Continue reading Thoughts on pest management at pink bud stage in Vermont orchards<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2068,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[36708,107009],"class_list":["post-1072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-ipm","tag-tree-fruit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"fruit","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/author\/fruit\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4nZlV-hi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}