Very few of my apricot PC bites result in a worm, I'm not sure why. What that means is you can just let the bitten fruits grow out and they will be perfectly fine except for the small bite blemish. The way you can tell a worm is in the fruit is there is an exit hole for the chaff. No exit hole no worm. For this reason I pay less attention to my apricots with the Surround, they don't get a very even coat. If you want to get Surround protection you really do need to keep it constant. We had one two-day rain and I could not re-cover for another day since I was too busy, and that is when most of my apple PC bites occurred. So far I am still less than 5% damage so its not a problem. I hold off on thinning until the PC is winding down (except for PC-bitten fruits which get thinned as I see them).

Scott

Agree w/Scott, I'm in VA and noticed that a PC sting often doesn't amount to much. I have used Surround, have a giant bag of it, but like you with too many other things going on to spray as frequently as it requires, am trying imidan this year. Between that and myclobutanil and sulphur for bacteria/fungus, everything looks great this year and little PC evidence. U of MD (my alma mater:) has a great one-pager spray schedule I included for you. You can modify, don't need everything they recommend, experiment as you see fit (e.g. fewer sprays of more effective materials such as Imidan to reduce residues)

Here is a link that might be useful: easy spray schedule

The main down side of Surround is the time and effort required for an adequate application. As long as you can find the time to do it and get your harvest it's great.

I estimate that it takes at least 4 times as much work as a good synthetic program and results in a considerable reduction in efficacy.

I commend Scott for his approach because I think he's really thought it out and made his decision with care and a good awareness of alternatives.

However, if your lives are too demanding to find the time to adequately protect your trees with Surround I strongly advise you to consider a synthetic alternative. If I switched to all organic I could only manage to produce about half the fruit I currently pull out of the orchards I manage and that would be the only measurable difference in the two approaches.

Thanks. I've got way too much on my plate right now! I'll keep an eye on them and keep spraying. Report back my findings when they start to size up some more. The "Hunza" apricots don't look like they got hit. The "Tomcots" got it good. At least this has woken me up so now i'm going to watch my plums like a hawk. Apples here are done flowering, but aren't quite at petal fall. My plan is to Surround them until big enough to bag and then not have to worry.

Leave some unbagged if you want to know what the bags are doing for you. Here we don't need to bag at most locations if we keep the surround coating for about a month starting at petal fall. Apple fly maggot is the one pest that will sometimes extend the threat but here 99% of the time it's been a no show.

I expect your pest pressure may be similar. Risk nothing learn nothing.

Every single apricot with the marks have fallen off the trees. Around 15 apricots now. Still some left, but i'm waiting to see all of them come off. Most had several worms inside of them. Pretty bad stuff if you don't spray at the right time. I've killed 7 PC adults with my fingers. All my sweet cherries are toast and some nectarines have been hit. Lots of PC this year.

Sorry to hear that Frank. Thats the downside of Surround, you need diligence. Based on my scouting of the crescent marks, I got most of my PC bites this year during a strong rainy period when I could not renew for 3-4 days. Most rainy periods are not that bad but the heavy rains can set you back to the point where the PC are wearing big smiles.

Scott

Yeah..its like the mark of death. I pulled any fruit i saw with it. My ENTIRE plum crop (never sprayed the tree) on my Alderman was removed! Every fruit had at least 5 marks! I live in an area that has a lot of wild plums and i'm thinking that is not a good thing!

Live and learn.. I should still be able to try a few apricots, some look to be holding.

Wow, 5 marks each, thats impressive. I think you still will be able to control them, I got almost zero plum bites this year, maybe half a dozen found total on about a thousand plums compared to nearly every fruit bitten if unsprayed. Based on that you should be able to get down to few enough bites that you can thin them all away.

Next year I plan to add a couple curc traps to the mix and see how that does. If I am ever traveling during curc season I could be hosed with Surround only.

Scott

I have my favorite plum (Superior) loaded with fruit and i've kept a good layer of Surround on that tree. For everything i've seen, no bites. I'm guessing i pushed them off of the protected trees to the unprotected.

I've counted up to 10 bites on one fruit. It really is amazing the pressure this year. I usually see them in the evening on the cherries mostly. I would assume they are about done by now. I threw all the bitten fruit in the garbage.

I've been tempted to try a trap. By the looks of it there is a lot of PC in this area, and it wouldn't hurt to thin the herd as much as possible.

Ah, good! I had thought that was all of your fruits. I still don't know why your PC liked your cots so much, maybe they woke up early and that was the only fruit. I got almost no damage and I wasn't keeping coverage up on the cots.

The PC trap that is supposed to work is the pyramid trap. See below for some good ideas on trapping them - in particular the bit about painting the trunks which I think will make them prefer the trap to the trees.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: UFL curc trapping page

Yes... I believe that is why. I think a group hatched right away (around 250hdd) and saw those fruits being the only available. Maybe it was just bad year because the apples, which i didn't touch with a spray look perfect, but they fruited much later then the apricots, during a cold spell.

Its all timing with this stuff.