Month: May 2016

When growing apples and peaches here in the Northeast there will always be “pests” that want to have their share of the pie, too. Knowing about the pests and when the trees or fruit may be susceptible is a science in itself. The “pests” I’d like to talk about in this blog are insects. I’m not going to lie we do have bugs in our orchard. Some like to eat the trees and leaves, some like to eat the fruit, and some are good and like to eat the bad bugs. Now how I deal with them is the most important factor.

First, I need to know who is out there????
We live with many different insects in our world, our communities and our own homes. Some are good, some are bad. Some orchards are bothered by certain insects while others are not. So, knowing who to look for is the most important part. In our orchard specifically we are looking for the following insects because we’ve sustained damage from them before. The key to all of this is monitoring the orchard with traps and sampling leaves or fruit to find the actual insect or damage. So, here’s a list of insects we look for (some cause a lot of trouble, others not so much): Plum Curculio, Rosy Apple Aphid, Green Peach Aphid, Woolly Apple Aphid, Apple Aphid, Apple Maggot, Codling Moth, Dogwood Borer, European Red Mite, Spider Mite, Obliquebanded Leafroller, Oriental Fruit Moth, San Jose Scale, Spotted Tentiform Leafminer, White Apple Leafhopper, Potato Leafhopper, Lesser Peach Tree Borer, and Peach Tree Borer.

Some of you may be saying, “Wow, that’s a lot of different insects to keep tract of.” These are the insects I’ve come across in my orchard, and they are not all in the orchard all the time. Also, keep in mind each year I grow apples and peaches the population levels of each insect vary due to other factors including changes in environmental conditions. I also don’t immediately go out and treat the entire orchard with a crop protectant to get rid of the insects until I know what’s there and if it’s even causing any damage.

Second, how do I know when these insects are here and causing damage?
I look for them on my own and with help from my friends from the Agricultural Stewardship Program which is part of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County.  The Ag Stewardship Program doesn’t just look for bugs. They were established in 2004 to address environmental concerns, protect water quality, and to preserve the business of farming. They do all kinds of things to help the farming community while helping to protect the environment.

Already, my good friend Laurie McBride (who works for the Ag Stewardship Program) has been out to both of our orchards to hang traps to trap specific insects. Inside the trap is a tiny rubber cap that contains a pheromone (an attractant) specific to the insect we are looking for. The insect is attracted to the trap and gets caught on the sticky cardboard allowing Laurie to check and count the insects.

Several traps per insect are used to track the insects in different parts of the orchard. She checks them once a week beginning in late April and continues throughout the summer.

Now, trapping doesn’t work for every insect. Most insects have a certain time period in the growing season that they like to be around. For example, Plum Curculio isn’t easily trapped and is only a problem during the early stages of fruit development. Thanks to all of our wonderful Entomologists we know that Plum Curculio will only remain in both the peach and apple orchards until 308 degree days (base 50F) have accumulated after petal fall. (Degree days are an accumulation of warmth during a growing season, and insects have specific timing based on degree days.) With this knowledge I can continue to check the NEWA Apple Insect Models to calculate the degree days and know exactly when Plum Curculio will be absent in the orchard and I can discontinue treatment.

NEWA stands for Network for Environment and Weather Applications. It is an application developed by Cornell University that is connected with many different weather stations including the two I currently own that are located in each of our orchards.

These weather stations collect data that is sent to the NEWA website hourly and the information is used for many things including insect models, disease models, and forecasting specific to agriculture. If you have the time take a look at the NEWA page and look up the “Water Mill” station (located in our apple orchard-for live data click here), and the “Water Mill (North)” station (located in our peach orchard-for live data click here).

Another option to track insects is scouting, which is physically looking for the insects on leaves or fruit and counting how many leaves have insects versus those without. With all this information collected from the orchard, I than can make an educated decision on whether to treat the orchard or not. Most of the time the orchard can withstand a certain amount of damage or a threshold. Researchers have developed threshold levels for many insects, which can help determine if a treatment is needed or not. Also, with the use of all these tools I can even pinpoint a specific area within the orchard which may be the only area that needs treatment as opposed to treating the entire orchard.

Third, what do I do when I find the insects?
What needs to be understood is that I don’t want to treat the orchard if I don’t have to. It goes along the same line of thinking when you go to the doctor with an infection you take a medicine to treat it most times. If we don’t need a treatment we don’t take it. I am only trying to protect the trees and fruit from damage that will harm our end product. I do not want to add anything to our orchard if it’s not needed and I do not want to spend the money on an expensive product. Also, remember I said before there are good bugs? One of my favorites is the Ladybird Beetle.  We like to preserve those good bugs in the orchard to help fight the bad bugs. So, if a treatment is necessary we try to use the safest product for our beneficial insects and the environment.

One type of treatment I always use, but it only works with certain insects, is mating disruption. Mating disruption does exactly what is says, it disrupts the mating of the insects therefore reducing if not eliminating any possible eggs being laid. The mating disruption ties have pheromones (attractants) that confuse the male and female insects so they cannot find each other to mate. These ties look like twist ties, and are placed throughout the orchard, and most often give season long control. I’ve been using them to control Oriental Fruit Moth, Lesser Peach Tree Borer, and Peach Tree Borer in my peach orchard for over 10 years with great success. This application eliminates the use of a crop protectant for these particular insects. The cost of the ties and the labor to put them out most definitely costs more than a crop protectant, but I am willing to spend the extra money to help reduce the number of crop protectants used. The reason the mating disruption only works with certain insects is because some insects can fly very far, up to 5 miles or more. If that’s the case they can fly into the orchard already mated and cause damage. So the researchers have developed mating disruption for as many insects as they can and have promoted their use throughout the fruit industry.

When possible we also like to introduce beneficial insects.  My sister, Amy, has introduced a few different insects into her greenhouse to help control populations of whitefly, aphids and spider mites.  We rely on the “good bugs” to control the “bad bugs.”

What is better now than even 20 years ago is all the new technology available to help us make educated decisions and use safer products. We always knew Plum Curculio were only in the orchard for a short time, but determining that time period was more difficult. Now with the technology of NEWA I have the answers at my fingertips on my iPhone! Also, knowing that the trees and fruit can sustain some damage helps us to reduce or even eliminate treatments all together.

At the end of the growing season during harvest Laurie comes with a team including Faruque Zaman, an Entomologist from Cornell Cooperative Extension in Riverhead, and checks several thousand apples in the orchard for insect damage. Over the past few years we have isolated certain areas of the orchard where more damage has occurred and limited treatments to these specific areas. We’ve also determined for example that Obleaquebanded Leafroller are present in the orchard, but are not causing extensive damage so I’ve been able to eliminate treatment completely for the past several years.

Growing fruit may seem to have become more difficult, but in my mind it has become easier with the newer technology available. It’s much easier now for me to know what is going on in the orchard on a daily basis. Who knows what will happen when drones will be able to track all kinds of information specific to each tree. Also, insects are not the only thing affecting our trees and fruit. Fungus, nutrients and environmental conditions all affect the trees. Some of our apples trees are still trying to recover from salt damage from Hurricane Sandy. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected and be ready for a challenge at a moment’s notice. It’s what keeps me out of trouble and keeps my mind active.