Popular Posts
-
This really only belongs on my crafty blog but since Diane and I both created a quilt for the contest I thought I’d share it with you all o...
-
The 2018 apple season started out with not the best weather – it rained and rained and rained some more. One afternoon on a whim, my mother...
-
Our vertical planters all started with this one wall. Jared made it using half logs. Once I looked at it – I realized the same goal could...
-
I know that I’ve already sauced and analyzed many of these varieties the first year I did it but I seemed to have lost my notes on them! Oh...
-
The Crimson Crisp is another new variety in our shop this year. It seems to me that the majority of the people that sample them end up buyi...
-
Next up to talk about it the Fireside. Now, the Fireside’s are big apples and are a bit more tricky to get through my peeler, corer, slicer...
Facebook Badge
Our Blog List
-
Api Etoile1 day ago
-
S'mores Cake4 months ago
-
Top 10 Fall Farms!
Monday, August 4, 2014
Integrated Pest Management
We often get asked the question…
Are you an Organic Orchard?
Simple answer is no – we are not an organic orchard. However, we do practice IPM - Integrated Pest Management. By watching degree days and scouting for bugs and scab we are able to spray our orchard at a minimum. Trust me – if we don’t HAVE to spray to give you all good, delicious apples we definitely would not!
Here are just a few of the things we use to scout for bugs!
The white tent looking thing in the middle of the trees has sticky paper on it. It’s actually a Pheromone traps which is used to capture male moths for monitoring and setting biofix, which is the time of first flight for codling moth. The codling moths land on it and get stuck to it. We daily check the traps and count how many codling moths have landed. If the number gets above the threshold IPM experts recommend within a certain time period it’s time to spray. If the number is less than that - no spray- yeah!
Click on ‘Codling moth’ right here if you want to see pictures of why we don’t want these in our apples! Yuck! (too gross for me to put an image on the blog!)
This sticky red ball is an apple maggot trap. The concept is the same as the pheromone traps for the codling moth. We check the trap daily and count the flies (which lay eggs in the fruit which then grow into maggots) stuck to it. If the number is above the threshold…it’s time to spray. If the number is less than that - no spray- yeah!
Click on ‘Apple Maggot’ to see pictures of what these do to the apples. Also too gross for me to put an image on here… yuck!
Frank, Diane and Jared are very good at scouting for these pests and we’ve managed to keep the infestation in our orchard to a minimum so far.
Are you an Organic Orchard?
Simple answer is no – we are not an organic orchard. However, we do practice IPM - Integrated Pest Management. By watching degree days and scouting for bugs and scab we are able to spray our orchard at a minimum. Trust me – if we don’t HAVE to spray to give you all good, delicious apples we definitely would not!
Here are just a few of the things we use to scout for bugs!
The white tent looking thing in the middle of the trees has sticky paper on it. It’s actually a Pheromone traps which is used to capture male moths for monitoring and setting biofix, which is the time of first flight for codling moth. The codling moths land on it and get stuck to it. We daily check the traps and count how many codling moths have landed. If the number gets above the threshold IPM experts recommend within a certain time period it’s time to spray. If the number is less than that - no spray- yeah!
Click on ‘Codling moth’ right here if you want to see pictures of why we don’t want these in our apples! Yuck! (too gross for me to put an image on the blog!)
This sticky red ball is an apple maggot trap. The concept is the same as the pheromone traps for the codling moth. We check the trap daily and count the flies (which lay eggs in the fruit which then grow into maggots) stuck to it. If the number is above the threshold…it’s time to spray. If the number is less than that - no spray- yeah!
Click on ‘Apple Maggot’ to see pictures of what these do to the apples. Also too gross for me to put an image on here… yuck!
Frank, Diane and Jared are very good at scouting for these pests and we’ve managed to keep the infestation in our orchard to a minimum so far.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comments:
That's good to know. However, I am not willing to eat an apple that has been sprayed. Will continue to buy organic.
Post a Comment