Hi Frederick-
A orangy-yellow spore sounds like Cedar Apple Rust. Do a Google image search on that to see if that's the case. What type of fungicide are you spraying? If it's the Bonide Fruit Tree Spray crap that says that it protects against Cedar Apple Rust, then that's your problem. It doesn't. Also, let us know where in 6b you are. -Glenn

Fred:

I second Glenn's request that you tell us where you are located. If it is anywhere in the eastern mid-atlantic, cedar apple rust (often called CAR here) will be a problem for you year after year, though some years are worse than others due to weather conditions favorable to the fungus. '08 was terrible where I live, but not bad at all this season, perhaps becasue I sprayed several times in April with the fungicide Ferbam, which is effective against this disease.

CAR is a tough fungus to control, and requires specific treatments. Dormant sprays are ineffective against CAR, since it does not have to overwinter on the trees, and blows in anew each spring from infected cedars that may be more than a mile away. Any old off-the-shelf fungicide, or one of the "organic" solutions will not do the trick. There are some apple varieties such as Williams Pride that have been observed to have genetic resistance against CAR, and I have observed resistance on my Red Delicious, but most apple varieties are susceptible and some are highly susceptible. The Ferbam fungicide that I use is difficult to obtain, but several others who have posted here are using a systemic called Immunox successfully, and it is more widely available. It is also sold in stronger commercial formulations under different trade names. When you mention use of a fungicide or insecticide, please tell us exactly what it is, and, if possible, the active ingredients listed on the label. This will help people to help you.

Leaf spotting is one obvious sign of CAR, and usually the first, but this disease can also attack the fruit itself, distorting and ruining entire crops of young apples. This may not yet be a problem for you on your very young trees, but now is the time to learn to deal with this disease before your trees begin to set and hold apples. If your newly planted trees have set any fruit after their blossoming, you should remove all of it promptly this season to allow the trees to put their energy into vegetative growth. If they do well, and you can control disease and insects, you may be able to leave a few apples to grow up next season.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Excellent, youse guys are good....Cedar Apple Rust(CAR). Today I'm off to locate Ferbam or Immunox.
No...no fruit yet - nor do I expect any this year (or next?). I'm a beginning gardener/fruit grower, and am so pleased just to see some fruit(pun) to my planting effort. Time will tell how "fruitful" it will be. Once again, thanks so much with identifying this orange spore. I'm off to see the wizard...
p.s. I'm located in 7B...Virginia, adjacent to the Rappahannock River and Chesapeake Bay. Fred

Fred:

I guess I didn't make this clear, but dealing with CAR is a prevention situation, and it will not help much if at all to apply remedies now. The medicine must be on the trees when the fungal spores arrive, which where you live is mainly in the month of April, with its windy rainstorms. After that, the damage will usually not spread further.

So if you are able to find either Ferbam or Immunox, squirrel it away for next spring and chalk this one up to experience. If your trees grow nicely this season, it would not hurt to do a dormant spray in about the month of February or early March with dormant oil and copper. These will help to keep overwintering aphids/mites under control and inhibit development of scab, another fungal disease of apples. Then be ready with your CAR treatment when the weather starts to change in April and the CAR galls start to grow and pop on the eastern red cedars.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

The S I's like Immunox, Messinger (myclobutanil), Rubigan and Procure have up to 96 hour after infection activity- ferbam is a protectant. Ferbam must be on the plant when infection occurs but the S I's have efficacy post symptom.
In other words, they can come to the rescue.

Commercial growers combine a protectant like Captan (for scab, not CAR) with an SI for best control (where SI's are still affective, on commercial sites resistance is an issue) so having both ferbam or manzate along with an SI would allow you to control CAR with far fewer sprays than ferbam alone.

On an average year, Don, how many sprays do you need to control CAR? I'm spraying an oil anyway so I add myclobutanil and spray at some point from half inch green through tight cluster. Than I use it again with insecticide and Captan at petal fall and 10-14 days later.

Never see a spot of CAR with this program and it requires no more than the 2 or 3 sprays that I apply to control non-fungus pests anyway. This is without any CAR protectant, which doesn't seem to matter. The 2-spray is the last 2 only.

Harvestman:

I usually don't get into a lot of detail and technical exceptions when trying to explain insect or disease control to a novice grower. Rather than risk confusing people and overloading the circuits with exceptions like post-infection activity of certain commercially available fungicides, I try to stick to a general rule. In the case of CAR and the backyard grower, I believe the best rule is: Have the fungicide on when the disease arrives. I know this is true of Ferbam, which is probably a moot point since it is now very difficult to find, but also recommend it for Immunox. Weather conditions in early spring will always affect the ability to spray, but in the case of a systemic like Immunox, post-spray rains may not affect the control of the chemical to the same degree. I do use a sticker-spreader with Ferbam, which I believe helps it cling a little longer, but doesn't protect new growth.

This season I did three sprays with Ferbam in the month of April because I had three decent days to spray, and one more in early May. This may sound excessive, but after the CAR disaster I experienced in the '08 season (due primarily to poopy weather that prevented spraying) I was taking no chances.

Even with this relatively high level of spray care, I still had 5-10% damage from CAR on the apples of some varieties -- and one of them was Goldrush, a genetically resistant variety. This level of damage to the fruit is not a problem for me, since at thinning time the apples showing even a touch of CAR on the calyx are the first to come off. This leaves plenty of healthy apples, but it irritates me when the affected apple in a cluster happens to be the big, fat king fruit. I don't worry too much about a few little CAR spots on the leaves. My concern is with the apples themselves.

The '08 season, when damage on some trees reached around 90%, may have left me a little shellshocked. Didn't even have enough apples to press cider, and barely made the applesauce quota. This season is much, much better, although I am pretty sure the high level of infection last season actually knocked out a lot of interior fruiting spurs, since I am having a lot more apples on the tips this season.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Goldrush has good resistance to scab, unfortunately like most (all?) goldens it doesn't have much resistance to CAR.

Don, I agree with your approach to helping newbies and it is lucky that you are so generous with your guidance for many who come here for advice, yours is sound, intelligent and always well presented.

I figure with you doing so well with this approach I will take the less efficient tact of overloading the questioner-more to expand the usfulness of the discussion for more experienced participants than anything else.

Finally, I wonder why you stick with ferbam in your CAR wars and haven't experimented with an SI. I figure it's probably the expense of the SI products, but give a strong possibility to loyalty to a product that has worked well enough. The SI's only take a rainfree hour to set and are not affected, at least not much, by precip after that.