Not yet, but have my eye on it for when some of my fruit tree seedlings are larger. Would like to hear updates on your experience. rosebush

Hey Scott - I've been using it for several years but, as I've mentioned before, I'm not sure how severe the curc pressure is here. I see the same beading on plums that you do, but I think it's there even between the spots. A second spray seems to fill in between the spots, by the way. I read once that one thing Surround does to curcs is to disrupt their climb up to the fruit, so it's presence on branches can be enough to curtail them. I've never sprayed my apples and quince often enough or late enough to prevent coddling moth and apple maggot damage, but it supposedly can work on them too. It seems to offer potatoes some protection too, so I generally mix a little extra for them.

Well I added some soap to the next spray and it helped a bit. I think I also had the sprayer nozzle set too un-fine - the drops were too big. On the apples that was good because I could use a narrow spray to zap each cluster, but on the plums it needs to be as fine a mist as you can get. The Surround has been holding up well in spite of rain, it needs a whole lot of rain to wash it off. Next year I have decided the point to start spraying is at petal fall. My poor nectarine seems to have 90% bitten fruits. I am going to be using it all summer on many of the fruits, and including spinosad to help against the moths. One reason is half of my apples are cider apples and they are just too small to bag all of them.

Scott

I use a spreader and sticker on Surround covers. Never knew you weren't supposed to and wouldn't follow that advise if I had read it. I am not going against the label as it is not a Restricted Use pesticide. I use Adwet for the spreader and Miller Nufilm 17 for the sticker. I only used Surround for sunburn prevention and I don't expect it to do anything else. The use of soap has been an accepted practice for years and it functions as a buffer. A good idea, but you have to be careful of the sudsing; and you should check the ph of your water to see if it is even needed.
I only use spinosad for cherry fruit fly and I don't know what else it might be effective against. IMS there are new spinosad products out, but do they treat CM? The nectarine bites in my area come from thrips and good luck controlling them with Surround. Keep us informed.
Scott do you have a private applicators license? If not, why not? It is cheap and the exam is not difficult; actually it is used more to educate than to test, if you know what I mean.

Geraldo, I recall reading somewhere that stickers can cause Surround to lose its effectiveness against insects -- they get irritated by the particles that get on them, but with a sticker the particles are too stuck to the plant to irritate them. I had used Nufilm in the past but after reading that I stopped using any spreaders or stickers. For your sunburn protection purpose it wouldn't matter and in fact the Nufilm will help it last longer.

I'll have to look into spinosad more -- I got it due to advertised control against OFM and CM. I have yet to actually use it for anything.

I am pretty sure the nectarine bites are from curcs, they have that telltale "C" shape. I will keep monitoring them looking for the tiny worm, the sure sign that its a curc.

I don't have any kind of license, I don't think its needed since I don't think anything is restricted use. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea in any case though.

Scott

I thought there were new spinosads, but they are not labeled for organic use on pome fruit. At least that is my understanding. These things are so involved and changing anymore that I just spray what a consultant tells me to spray. I don't know what we will spray the conventional apples with this year, but the time is close.
We don't have curculios here and I know nothing about them. I just know that with nectarines here the thrip is very hard to control. We use to spray conventional rines every 24 hours with some product, the name eludes this old man at the moment.
I never found Surround to be effective against CM, and that is the only pest I am concerned with for pome fruits.

Geraldo I found the link where I read about spinosad for CM - see below. I am hoping that Surround plus spinosad makes my apples tolerably non-wormy; we'll see.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: UC Davis link - scroll down for spinosad CM info