[Josh Willis]

I am assuming you spray k-bicarb during bloom at 5 lbs. / 100 gallon and it is just fine? Just want to make sure there is no risk of blossom thinning there. We are pondering spraying for some kick back today, but with half the orchard in bloom and a freeze event, probably not worth the extra variables. But good to know for the future if we need to spray during bloom to make up for a questionable rain event.

And I am curious if anybody knows why some k-bicarb products are labeled for a wider list of fungi (such as Carb-O-Nator) vs. some that are just listed for PM (Kaligreen). I am guessing this just what they showed sufficient evidence to be labeled, but the underlying action would be much the same? The k-bicarb rate between the 2 products is very similar (85% vs. 82%). Or is there a huge difference in the surfactants they put in the products?

[Josh Willis]

To satiate my own memory, and whether it is truly there, I found Michael’s discussion of painting pure neem. This is actually in the Winter 2022 newsletter. Here’s an excerpt, check out the newsletter for more discussion.

“Those of you caught up in borer karma should know a number of us have had good success with the “direct neem plan” for borer on young trees. The idea being to paint undiluted neem oil on the lower eight inches of small diameter trunks—even allowing it to puddle up at the soil line—someme in May/June before female adults begin to oviposit. This preemptive treatment does the job for the full season ahead.”

[Josh Willis]

Jon, I have notes and memory that Michael recommended applying a 100% neem via brush or (if solidified) butter knife as borer protection to the bottom ~4-6″ of a tree trunk. I can’t find the exact reference, though he does talk about it a bit in the June 2016 newsletter. In any case, I’ve done this on our handful of peach trees that are prone to borer, and they have been just fine. Keep in mind that I think young trees do absorb nutrients through thin bark, so that might be good to double check if younger trees are ok with such a paste.

If you are talking about tree paste as a rejuvenating treatment for bark health, then in addition to Mike’s post, I’d recommend looking at the forum posts for tree paste formulations, there are some very good discussions. If you do want to reduce 100% neem to a lesser percentage, presumably some emulsification is helpful actually standardize the mix, i.e., to have some fidelity to the formulation you are trying to achieve.

Keep in mind that I think there is sometimes a fine line between a high enough percent of fatty acids to disrupt microbial activity and enough to encourage microbial activity. For example, the difference between a “Fatty Acid Knockdown” (perhaps at 4% Neem) and an inoculating spray (at 0.5% or 1%). I’m guessing for a band on the trunk base, that is less of an issue, but for a broad swath of the trunk and branch structure, that might be more of a consideration. Hopefully somebody with a better understanding of microbial activity and fatty acid percentages can chime in here to better elucidate.

[Josh Willis]

Steve, that is a wild side note about the increase in caterpillar populations. We have noticed a huge number of full grown caterpillars wondering around places they are not usually found. Looking online, it seems this species often has “outbreak” years, and perhaps our Cicada emergence a couple years ago helped this generation out, though indirectly. We have a bit of a forest on our property, so there are lots of possible habitats for them nearby other than our orchard. Anyways, as I look into these caterpillars more than I have usually, I notice the egg casings that I saw back in pruning season, and that I meant to look up, seem to have been caterpillar egg casings. Oops!

Not sure if Dipel BT works on this stage of the caterpillar larvae, but since they are everywhere (and not in a tidy webbed package anymore), I am going to give it a go, especially since we have other leaf eating pests to target.

[Josh Willis]

Those are tent caterpillars, the particular species depends on your location. They defoliate the tree. Best way to get rid of them is to smoosh with your gloved hands. If you can’t reach and haven’t pruned that branch yet, it might be worth pruning to get to them. There may be some sprays, though I do not know how helpful those are.

I think, in general, any caterpillar on a fruit tree is a pest. Let me know if I am forgetting about a beneficial species.

[Josh Willis]

A few other items on the wishlist for the HON forum, please. These are features that used to be in the old forum, I think.

-Email notifications for responses to a forum that you’ve posted to.
-Visual cues for when there are new forum posts when you are browsing (for ex., the forum used to put forum topics in *bold* when there was a new post, and that would go back to regular font when you’d read the forum).
-Messaging to other members via the HON forum.

Thanks again for your work!

[Josh Willis]

Chris, thanks for sharing your experiences. Have you tried NEWA’s carbohydrate model for Apple Thinning? And it sounds like you skipped potassium bicarb as a spray for these models because it did not work well for you previously?

I am going to post somewhere else on HON about this model, for those interested.

[Josh Willis]

Hi Nicky,
Welcome to the forum. Here are some answers to help get you started.

1. I think you might be confusing “cover spray” with “coverage” or “spray to drip.”

Any spray is usually going to be applied to complete “coverage” of the target area, i.e., leaves, buds, and/or branch and trunk structure, depending on the spray.

“Cover sprays” are traditional orchardist speak, so far as I understand, for “covers” of orchard canopy leaves. So 1st cover spray is usually the first spray after petal fall and the leaf canopy is establishing. Sprays generally are good for ~7-10 days, depending on the ingredients, the weather, and even grower tolerance for fruit damage. So you might have Petal Fall -> 7-10 days later -> 1st Cover Spray -> 7-10 days later -> 2nd Cover Spray, etc. Michael’s system I think just uses this nomenclature up to 4th Cover Spray, and then starts saying “Comprehensive Sprays” and then “Summer Sprays” to distinguish what his goals were. You could just as well call them 5th to 8th Cover Spray, etc. Many conventional orchardists usually say this. It just isn’t as accurate for Michael’s formulations.

As you are probably guessing now, Spring 1-4 are different than these cover sprays. The Spring sprays tend to key in on the phenological phases of bud growth, i.e., 1/4″ green, tight cluster, early pink, and bloom, etc. These sprays are really keyed in to give specific health boosts at the earliest and arguably tenderest moments of the fruit tree’s new growth.

You should have access to the “Holistic Spray Framework” in the Apple Core section of the new website. This should help give you an overview. I would also recommend reading through the issues of the HON newsletter that presumably are on the website somewhere. I think the Holistic Spray Framework PDF even references a specific HON newsletter that gives a great summary of the rationale behind what Michael symphonically titled the Four Sprays of Spring.

2. Meristem launch is another key on the growth process of the fruit trees. My memory is this is when buds develop for *next* year. In other words, it pays to support the tree’s meristem “launch” with specific nutrients to make sure there is good bud development for the next year. But hopefully someone else is able to chime in to confirm my memory on that.

3. I think notes are a great way to learn these spray processes! There used to be a page on the website with Holistic Spray Recipe, but I don’t know if that got transferred to the new website. There is the Holistic Spray Plan, which is designed for larger orchards, but that you could adapt to a backyard orchard. I didn’t double check your write up. But I would just recommend starting to think about the ingredients in terms of percentage of your tank volume. Your recipe is presumably based on a 4 gallon tank. But if you list %, than that helps other growers (and yourself) compare apples to apples, so to speak. For example, is your neem at a 0.5% rate of your total tank volume? Do you usually spray EM-1 at a 2% rate, but could you double it to 4% during Spring 1 or during peak rot infection windows to increase inoculation? These are hypothetical questions, but each year is a new dance with your trees and the weather and your understanding, so it helps to have some firm #’s to track what is in your tank.

Hope that helps!

[Josh Willis]

I think the type of compost manure generally is under the category, “Whatever you could get your hands on and that you could spread”. Not sure how many trees and acreage you are talking about. You can buy bulk or bagged composted chicken manure that is easy to spread and has a nice mix of nutrients, something around 5-4-3 for example. I wouldn’t worry too much about a precise NPK formula, as long as it is generally balanced. Cow manure that I’ve seen is less dense in nutrients, but might be easier to find a local source if you have a nice tractor to spread it with. Just watch out for what those animals were given to eat, so far as pesticide sprayed grains, antibiotics, etc.

So far as when to spread, your timing seems about right to me. I think the standard teaching is in Spring. If you want to fine-tune it, some people argue for about 1/2 of N applied around bud break, and about 1/2 of N after petal fall, to ensure N availability throughout the growing season. Of course, ideally your soil has unlocked the entire N it needs through biological activity…but not sure how many people achieve that. Please pipe up if you have! 🙂

I think Michael talked about spreading compost in the Fall, as you say, with the understanding that N would be collected for use in spring. I’m sure some compost with other soil amendments after soil testing would help those amendments be mineralized and integrated into the soil, in addition to any soil structure help that compost tends to have.

There used to be a “Seasonal Checklist” on the website that Michael posted years ago, but I’m not sure if that is still available.

Hope that helps!

[Josh Willis]

I’ve used a spreadsheet (insert your brand of choice, I like Google Drive for its simplicity) for years to track soil test results, amendments, spray planning, etc. I’ve just started to record actual sprays (i.e., different than what was planned, of course!), and it is easy to put in bloom dates, weather, etc. It takes a bit of work to set up, but it is customizable to track whatever you want to track.

There used to be a page on the forums that gave an example of what Michael used as a consultant to help orchardists track sprays and weather. If you could find that example, you could use that as a starting basis for designing your own system.