Rhode Island Apple IPM
June 1, 2011: Recorded Apple Pest Message in Print

Hi Fruit Growers,
First about the RI Fruit Growers Scavenger Hunt!
All participating farm stands open now have Scavenger Hunt brochures and stickers. Kerri will deliver your brochures and stickers by the time your stand is open. Do you understand how the Scavenger Hunt works? You and all of your employees that interact with the public have to understand the Scavenger Hunt. Customers will come to you with their brochure. They will show you which of the 24 pictures is from your farm (or you help them if they don’t know!). Then you give them one of your little stickers for them to place on your picture. They need to visit at least 12 orchards to be eligible to win a prize. You have to know which picture is yours!! You have to have the stickers handy! There is an incredible amount of interest with the public and I hear open farm stands have already had customers with Scavenger Hunt brochure looking to get a sticker. There are 1000’s of these brochures all around the state!!! If you have questions please call me (874-2967) or Kerri (996-0313).

The first 100 people who visit 12 of the 24 orchards are eligible for a prize. That means we need you to donate coupons for prizes. I think the 100 prizes should be a few coupons per prize – so we really need a lot of donations. If every farm donates 17 coupons – that would give us 4 coupons per prize. We’ll print up the coupons, what we need from you is promises of donations! So a bag of apples, hay ride, jar of honey, 10% off purchase… whatever… And remember, the prize will get people back out to your farm to cash in the coupon in 2012. Please let me know what you can donate!

Pest message
We are at the end of primary scab season, but with all the wet weather, your trees should remain protected with a fungicide for another week or so. Any scab lesions in your orchard could have spread spores to start new lesions during all that wet weather. The intense wet weather that started May 4 just started producing visible scab lesions on May 24. Many orchards probably got into trouble was around May 17 and these lesions started being visible around May 30th . The message is - scout your orchard and look for scab lesions! If you do find scab, apply full rates of Captan or Syllit. I know just last week I said not to mix Captan and Sevin, but hopefully now it is all right to apply Captan.

Plum curculio is winding down for the season. This insect is nearly finished migrating into orchards from the woods. Orchard Radar predicts that orchards in Greenville sprayed with an insecticide May 26 or later will be protected through the end of plum curculio migration. In Newport County the final plum curculio insecticide spray is needed June 1 or later.

You can also be looking for European red mites, but they really shouldn’t be a problem after all the wet/humid weather we have experienced. See the Fruit Tree Pest Management Guide for miticides if you find an average of one mite per leaf.

Winter moth caterpillars are nearly done feeding for the year. There may be a few caterpillars left, but most of them have dropped to the ground where they will pupate and then emerge as moths in November and December. There is nothing for you to do to control this insect now.

There is so much useful information on Orchard Radar! See it at http://www.uri.edu/research/ipm/