It’s the time of year that fruit trees are coming out of dormancy and buds are swelling. Using the swelling of bud to time preventative sprays is the most accurate way to control diseases on your fruit trees.
Japanese plum buds, at stage 3
By watching the buds on your fruit trees, you can time fungicide and bactericide sprays so they do the most good. And by using bud stages to time your sprays, you end up spraying less- always a good goal.
Cherry buds at stage 2, almost to stage 3
Recently, plum and cherry buds are starting to swell, so now’s the time to look at your trees for timing. Stage 3 flower buds is a perfect time to spray an oil plus copper for cherries and plums. What do these sprays do?
- Oil in delayed dormant sprays smothers overwintering aphid and mite eggs
- Copper helps prevent bacterial canker infections, blossom blight and brown rot in stone fruit trees.
Apple bud stage 4
How about your apples and pears? It’s early for these, but here are the signs you should be looking for: apples and pears should get a spray of oil plus sulfur between stages 4 and 6.
- Again, the oil in the delayed dormant spray will smother overwintering aphid, scale and mite eggs
- Sulfur helps prevent powdery mildew at this stage.
Once pears and apples hit stage 4, the flowers can open pretty fast. If you grow varieties that are susceptible to apple or pear scab, you will need to be ready to spray a sulfur spray (with no oil) once your blossoms swell just to the point of showing color (pre-pink, or stage 6). Add Bacillius thurengenisis (Bt) to this spray to get the first hatch of leaf rollers. A second sulfur spray at petal fall will keep your trees healthy and mostly scab free.
My apple tree has already produce fruits,I have a few left on the tree but now my tree is starting to buds flowers again can you please tell me why.
Many trees were confused by our weather this year and produced some blooms around harvest. It is nothing to worry about, although, of course, those flowers won’t produce fruit. Young trees are more likely to do this than older ones, but we saw it even on established trees this year.
Do pears bear fruit on first year ,or second year buds?
European pears bear mostly on 2-4 year old wood. Asian pears can bear sometimes on first year wood, but most production on 2-4 year old wood.
I have a cherry tree in my backyard which has buds similar to the one shown in the picture, “Cherry buds at stage 2”. But, it also has leaves and appears healthy. It has never bloomed in the past. Are these dormant buds? Do you have any suggestions or tips?
You might be seeing next year’s flower buds. How old is the tree? It takes a couple years for them to get established and flowering. If the tree appears healthy, then it might be just setting buds for next spring. But this has also been a strange weather year in Western Washington, with swings from hot to cold. Some fruit trees that bloomed normally and set fruit are also throwing out extra flowers out of season.
This is the third year in our yard. So, I am guessing it is a four-year-old tree. I haven’t fertilized them in the last two years. I will fertilize them on schedule and will wait and watch the buds. I had no idea that the buds could appear so early for the next season.
Thank you!
very nice, but did you know that sulfur is difficult to get.
Micronized sulfur is widely available, but lime-sulfur (polysul) is available only to commercial growers.