michael357, a few years ago we had an outbreak of forest caterpillars. I wrapped the tree trunks with stick tape and tanglefoot but the caterpillars climbed tall trees and repelled on silk into my fruit trees! The caterpillars would munch poison like it was nothing. I doused the tender shoots too often and they burned out. So folks got to be careful what they spray on young leaves it might do more harm than good.

I am having problems with caterpillars now. Some trees have only been on the ground a month. I am just doing a daily walk and spot spraying any of them that i see with sevin. They damaged a 3 year old tree pretty bad in just a day or two. I see them on new buds just waiting to open.

Totally agree Ace. If I spray something that I've never used before, it only goes on a very small portion of the tree, same thing if the rate increases or spraying at a different developmental stage for leaves. The problem with this spray was that all I remembered was having done it before, not the result. That was back before I started keeping detailed written records of sprays and results.

Michael

just bought 2 wonderful kiefer pear trees...it's important to us that they bear fruit eventually. we don't know how close (or far) apart from each other to plant them.
any advice?
thanks!

bucky130, most years we don't get the caterpillars and I hope not this year. I got a lot of bare root trees planted too. The small caliper BR trees have enough juice for two leaf outs then they are dead. The thick ones I'm not worried about.