Organic Tree Spray

[jamison]

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

[Newt]

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.
http://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.
http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/factsh ... pples.html
Here's a bunch more ecogardening factsheets.
http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/factsh ... index.html

This site is from UC Davis in California but has lots of helpful info on IPM
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/selectne ... lture.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.
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/crops-agriculture.html

Newt

[jamison]

Thank you. This could take me awhile to go through this stuff. Which is exactly what I wanted.

I suspect it is the apple maggot because there are many warnings in our area about transporting the apple maggot to other areas.

Thank again.

[Newt]

You are so very welcome! Don't hesitate to write in if you have more questions.

Newt

[pixelphoto]

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