The Jellyman, who lives in your immediate area, should pop up soon with answers to your questions. I believe him to be quite well informed. Follow his local advice. Misterbaby.

HARVESTMAN, PLEASE HELP! Evidently Don is down for a nap, and I'm not qualified to advise on plums or cherries. I'll go meddle elsewhere. Thanks, Misterbaby.

Greenpixie,

I don't have the experience of Jellyman or Harvestman, but I do live in the same general area as you (suburban Maryland). So here are my thoughts. First, are you expecting fruit next year? If next year is the second year in the ground I would not expect much fruit and I would probably remove most of it if you get any and let the trees grow a bit. This makes spraying for major insect pests like curculio unnecessary, at least next year, since it is the fruit they attack. So there would be no need for the Surround or the Spinosad.

Cedar apple rust might be a problem on the Newton Pippin, but should not be on the Liberty, which is resistant to all major apple diseases. But I have young apples -- Grimes Golden, Black Twig, Pommes Gris -- that have not yet fruited and that have only suffered a very little cedar apple rust damage, despite lots of red cedars nearby, so I am not sure how big a concern this is with young trees (Jellyman might help here). I believe Immunox is effective against this disease. Stone fruit do not get cedar apple rust, only pome fruit like apples and pears.

I do a dormant spray on my trees in early spring with a mixture of lime sulphur and oil, which I think helps against overwintering aphids and the like and some fungal diseases, but I am not sure how useful this spraying really is.

I doubt you will have problems with the Montmorency cherry -- if anything, it is birds you will have to worry about; I will leave others to comment on the plums.

The idea of leaving the peach as a bait might well work once you start to get some fruit. It would attract curculio and later, the Oriental Fruit Moth -- the latter is a particularly bad pest and is active all summer. Just make sure you clean up any dropped fruit and removed fruit that is hit. I doubt however that this will stop all attacks on the other stone fruit (i.e. your plums). I am coming to the conclusion that it requires a fairly heavy duty insecticide to control the fruit moth. Spinosad works on it in my experience, but is not registered for enough sprays to last the whole summer. I think permethrin on the stone fruit might work better.

It is conceivable you could get fire blight on your apples. Antiobiotics can be applied in advance against fire blight, but my inclination is not to treat for a disease unless a need is demonstrated (would you pop antibiotics just in case you might get sick?). So this summer I would keep an eye out for fire blight on the apples and pears and cut it out if it appears, if it does appear perhaps spray for it the year after.

So in my view there is not a great need for spraying this coming year. Pest pressures build over time and in the first year or so are usually not heavy.

I'm well versed in establishing trees in the Northeast, but Don is the one you need for specifics in your area.

Here I usually don't have to worry much about protecting leaves- it's mostly about the fruit. I think liberty will likely be fine unsprayed until it starts bearing. I also believe one of this variety is all you need because it doesn't keep well and isn't a great cooker. I don't know how sucseptable to scab and cedar apple rust is Newtown. I don't need any fungicide on it here in my own orchard and elsewhere I've never left it unsprayed.

Green Gage is a tough fruit to harvest anywhere (even in France, which is about the only place it's grown commercially as far as I know). Don would recommend you avoid Euros altogether, I believe, and stick to growing Jap plums. GG is very susceptable to brown rot, cracking (if it rains at all around ripening time) and plum curculio.

I love the way it tastes and am trying it here after having some success with a young sister, Oullins. I expect to have to use a lot of fungicide.

Euro plums take a long time to bear anyway. Maybe you should run with a Methely and a Satsuma Jap plum.

Thanks everyone!! I will do the research so I can identify fireblight and those crazy looking cedar galls. I have definitely read here that the greengage plums are finicky at best, but I wanted them badly enough that I figured I'd try. I'll plant one more euro to pollinate it (and I have a huge colony of honeybees living very near the trees), and then I'll probably do a couple of japanese plums too.
The advice and input on tree selection is very welcome!!

Everyone has to find their own route in this exploration. When I started I planted based on what I thought would be most exciting to eat, often picking things that had marginal chances at best. It turned out that more common varieties- especially with stonefruit, were the most rewarding and rare was often rare for a reason. None of the varieties of my first northeast orchard are still in the ground except apples that have been grafted over to something else. Of course, the internet did not exist when those trees were being ordered.

If a fruit is not commonly grown in your region, even by hobbyists, the odds are not good they will bring much pleasure. You will be surprised at how much better and different common or at least tried and true varieties taste picked off your own trees.

Greenpixie:

here is a CAR gall that is sporulating

{{gwi:56628}}

here is one just beginning to sporulate

{{gwi:56622}}

Immunox can be used effectively to control CAR. I prefer to wait until 1 day +- of the galls beginning to sporulate to begin spraying as opposed to using a schedule based on tree growth stage strictly. It requires scouting and knowing what environmental conditions will cause sporulation to occur, not to mention the ability to spray within no more than 96 hours of leaf infection.

Michael

Michael, logical leaps not based on actual trials can result in a lot of errors. The question is just as much when are the apple leaves most vulnerable as when is there innoculum, and the window when apple leaves can be infected is pretty narrow, I believe.

I have to ask you if your interesting and quite logical approach has led to the ability to control CAR with less than 3 sprays. As I have said, I get adequate control with only 2 and complete with 3. Adequate with a petal fall ap and first cover (10-14 days after PF), complete with an additional one shortly after half-inch green (not later than tight cluster) when I apply oil. I don't have to bother scouting out cedars and I would be spraying at these times anyway for other problems.

Thanks so much -- I wonder, if I see overwintering galls now, does it help to cut them out of the cedars and burn them?
Harvestman, you make a good point about pushing the envelope. I am planning to add a satsuma and a methley, and probably a damson. I'm also looking at additional apple varieties at Vintage Virginia Apple. My microclimate is very much like Monticello, so I am drawn to the Jeffersonian fruits for historic reasons as well as figuring that, if he could grow them without sprays and modern technology, I should be able to. But I'm willing to spray as needed and shovel prune if it comes down to it:)

If you are going to be spraying for scab your program will control CAR anyway. CAR spores can travel well but close proximity definately increases pressure from what I've seen.

Tom Burford managed the trees at Monticello for years, if you google his name you might find his top 10 list. I have his list of varieties he's found resistant to scab, CAR and fireblight but it's not in my computor.