My wife is allergic to any kind of spray typically on the market. Because of my location I have a real problem with worms in my apples. The tree is very prolific but I throw away 90-95 % of the apples. The year I sprayed malathion I harvested a great crop but my wife was ill and worse cranky.
She claims that I can find effective organic sprays but I have no clue how or where. Please help
Hi Jamison,
I too have chemical sensitivities so I can appreciate what your wife goes through. Here's some home made sprays you can make for insect pests and diseases.
https://www.ghorganics.com/page15.html
You can also use IPM - Integrated Pest Management strategies. That could be a biological control like attracting a good bug to be a predator of the bad bug or another organic control. It helps to know which pest is the problem. With your apples I suspect the problem is the apple maggot though there are other pests that leave worms in apples. Many people hang red sticky balls in their trees and the maggot fly is attracted to these and get stuck.
Do you know which pest it was?
Here's a site about growing apples without pesticides.
https://www.gardening.cornell.edu/factsheets/ecogardening/hgapples.html
Here's a bunch more ecogardening factsheets.
https://www.gardening.cornell.edu/factsheets/ecogardening/index.html
This site is from UC Davis in California but has lots of helpful info on IPM
https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/selectnewpest.floriculture.html
Here's their page for crops. If you click on 'Apple' you might be able to determine which pest it is and find helpful info too.
https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/crops-agriculture.html
Newt
I too have chemical sensitivities so I can appreciate what your wife goes through. Here's some home made sprays you can make for insect pests and diseases.
https://www.ghorganics.com/page15.html
You can also use IPM - Integrated Pest Management strategies. That could be a biological control like attracting a good bug to be a predator of the bad bug or another organic control. It helps to know which pest is the problem. With your apples I suspect the problem is the apple maggot though there are other pests that leave worms in apples. Many people hang red sticky balls in their trees and the maggot fly is attracted to these and get stuck.
Do you know which pest it was?Here's a site about growing apples without pesticides.
https://www.gardening.cornell.edu/factsheets/ecogardening/hgapples.html
Here's a bunch more ecogardening factsheets.
https://www.gardening.cornell.edu/factsheets/ecogardening/index.html
This site is from UC Davis in California but has lots of helpful info on IPM
https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/selectnewpest.floriculture.html
Here's their page for crops. If you click on 'Apple' you might be able to determine which pest it is and find helpful info too.
https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/crops-agriculture.html
Newt
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pixelphoto
- Senior Member
- Posts: 155
- Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2007 9:13 pm
- Location: Middle Georgia USA
Here in georgia we do several things that may help.
1. spray with kaolin, its a sticky clay thats naturally occuring around here you can buy it at some nursery's or online do a search for it.
2. use ladys nylons and cover each apple with them. This is very time consuming but we sometimes go out and cover each individual fruit the nylons don't hurt the fruit and stretch as it grows. We use the footie nylons not the long legged ones. LOL
1. spray with kaolin, its a sticky clay thats naturally occuring around here you can buy it at some nursery's or online do a search for it.
2. use ladys nylons and cover each apple with them. This is very time consuming but we sometimes go out and cover each individual fruit the nylons don't hurt the fruit and stretch as it grows. We use the footie nylons not the long legged ones. LOL