Email
Print
How fruitful was your orchard this year?
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: October 10, 2008
Did you experience fruit crop that was less than favorable this past growing season, and an abundance of beetles? If so, this means it is time to plan more for next season. These reoccurring problems are the focus of this week's column.
What can be done now to get a good fruit crop next season? One fall treatment is sanitation. Preventing insecticide and diseases especially in stone fruit like plums, cherries and peaches should start now with a good job of cleaning up the rotten stuff in and underneath the trees.
Removal of broken and diseased limbs is also a part of this task. The combination or general purpose orchard spray is also recommended as there are left over spores and insects that are reproductive. Borers in the trunk of stone fruit trees can be killed in late winter and spring by removing the jelly-like substance from the trunk and branches and pushing a wire into trunk holes or making vertical slits through them with a knife.
Get a soil sample and prune this winter. This should be followed with a dormant spray for insects and one for diseases immediately after pruning in February.
How do you get rid of moles in the lawn? Their food supply is primarily grubs, and the grub, which changes into beetles, can be reduced with fall lawn treatment. Grub control products include sevin, triazacide and grub-x insecticides. Milky spore is a biological control but for Japanese beetles only.
The larger grubs are often more plentiful on driveways and walks and around compost piles and soft areas in the lawn and will change into June beetles. The three insecticides will control both type grubs to reduce moles if applied from mid May through June and from mid August through mid October.
Reach Don Breedlove at: email: Don_Breedlove@ncsu.edu
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
Advertisement
