Need recipe for organic spray for fruit trees

We have 27 apple trees, two pear, two peach, two plum and two cherry trees. We've been spraying with regular fruit tree spray we buy at the hardware store. It is supposed to control insects and various diseases and fungus. I'd like to make my own spray that is as organic as possible. We want good fruit and to keep the trees as healthy as possible.

Does anyone have ideas for orchard spray and also a scedule for spraying in zone 5 mid Michigan?

Hi Loon, What do you mean by "regular fruit tree spray"? What is it you are now using?
Lilly Miller has an oil spray that is mostly canola oil, I think that is about as organic as you can get. It is for dormant and growing season use.

You do know that a systemic, or at least Bayers systemic, can safely be used on your pears and apples. But not on your stone fruit. I don't know for sure but I doubt it is organic. There are all kind of recipes with soaps, vinegars, amonnia, coffee, 7up, chewing tobacco and other strange stuff available if you search them out. I have never tried any so I can't offer an opinion and I don't believe many of the ingredients would be considered organic. Don

Hi Don,

Thanks for responding. The spray we use now is in a white bottle and it just says Fruit Tree Spray. I think it's by Boniac or some such company. I probably got the name wrong. I think it is a combination of insecticde and fungicide. We start spraying early in the spring before the buds open up and then respray every four weeks but maybe that isn't enough. We spray all the fruit trees with it and also the grapes.We are very new to growing fruit and a bit unsure what we are doing. We do want to learn the proper way. Maybe there is no way to grow fruit well without using the chemcials. We don't want to lose our trees to disease and insects. Last year we did put dormant oil spray on at end of winter. We're not sure about timing and what products to be using. I do spray Liquid Fence on all to repel the deer who like to come chew on the trees and eat my fruit before it ripens. We lost all our plums and pears last year to the little buggars. They didn't even leave us one. :)

Thanks for any help you can offer. Does anyone else grow fruit?

I haven't tried any home remedies either, but would like to make a suggestion. Contact your local Cooperative Extension Service for information on spray schedules for your area, what pest problems you are most likely to encounter, pest management, etc. If they can't answer any of your questions, they forward them to someone who can. With luck, you will find a very knowledgeable agent. You'll also find the emphasis on use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc has changed in recent years. The Intergrated Pest Management approach is more eco-friendly. The agent should also be more conversant with organic methods you can use.
http://www.msue.msu.edu/portal/default.cfm?pageset_id=25744&page_id=25770&msue_portal_id=25643

In my area it is the plum curculio that does most of the damage and that happens quite early in the season before apples reach quarter size for the most part. So whatever you spray in the midwest needs to be used early and more often in May right after petal fall until about the 20th of June.

There is a new product called Spinosad which is debateably organic but pricey. I know that the Bonide Fruit Tree Spray leaves a LOT to be desired.

The Surround clay spray coating might work ok on dwarf and minature trees but is not as practical for large trees unless you can coat the fruit only and not have to spray the whole tree.

Thanks Betty for the suggestion to contact my cooperative extension service. Thanks for the link.

Indy, I found some of the Spinosad products are available online. I'll look into that as well. My goal is to produce very good fruit. In the future I'm hoping to make a cash crop out of some of the fruit. I have to learn what I'm doing first though. :)

Brenda

Brenda, the organic options are not large. Surround is what you can use on the fruit up to dime/nickel sized to prevent the plum curculio. Indy, you spray it on the whole tree, just like any other spray. After that spinosad works well on the moths if applied frequently enough. There are also mating disruptants which you put in your orchard to confuse the moths (codling moth and oriental fruit moth in particular). Serenade is an organic disease spray effective against several diseases. Sulphur is a low-power disease spray. Copper is a more high-power one but it builds up in the soil over time so usage should be limited. I have been growing fruit "99% organic" and found it takes a lot of work to figure out the right spray schedule, but it is possible.

If you are serious about it, the first thing I would do is get Michael Phillips' book The Apple Grower and read it from cover to cover and use it to plan your apple spray program. I don't recall if he mentions spinosad in that book but I think he mentions the others. I am trying mating disruptants for the first time this year (another new thing that may not be in The Apple Grower). Talk to Great Lakes IPM (in your state) and they can set you up there.

Scott

There are effective organic fruit tree products.

Green Light Fruit Tree Spray is Neem Oil and Pyrethrin-based. They are plant extracts so completely organic. It is used to kill insects on contact.

Surround is inert powdered kaolin clay. It is mixed up and sprayed onto leaves and fruit, leaving an organic coating that bugs hate to walk on and will not eat to get to the fruit.

Mineral oil is used as a dormant oil. It can be sourced organically.


I have no clue how you would recreate this organic fruit tree regimen at home by mixing up stuff around your house

Feldon, I would not call neem oil and pyrethrin effective. They are too weak to kill the plum curculio and moths that are the primary insect pests of fruit trees. Surround is helpful on bugs and mineral oil is a help both as a dormant oil to reduce aphid populations and as a summer controller of a few diseases. Again, see The Apple Grower for the whole scoop on organic apple growing. Its a complex subject.

Scott

Have any of you had success with using some type of trap for the bugs?

Loon, the traps are considered good for monitoring populations only. But, I do know of one guy who said the traps worked well for keeping the moth damage to a minimum in a small orchard. I don't remember how many traps he used but it was a fair number. What you need to get is a trap with a pheromone lure in it for the kind of critters you are wanting to catch. I am going to be using traps this coming year just for monitoring moth populations.

Scott



This message was edited Feb 18, 2009 9:15 PM

Thanks Scott for the informatin. It will save me money not buying those fake red apples that you smear with something to kill the bugs. I was thinking of investing in those but I have so many apple trees it would have cost a lot.

Loon, the red apples are usually sold to control the apple maggot fly, not the coddling moth.

Do they work well enough to invest the money in buying them or will a good spray be as effective?

One thing they do is let you know when the flies have shown up, so you can start spraying.