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If you want to enjoy the fruits of your labor later, give your
fruit trees tender loving care now. TLC means watering, pruning and spraying to ensure healthy
trees and a bountiful crop.
Water is a must for fruit trees because fruit itself is
largely water. Water trees thoroughly every other week. If the tree
is water-stressed during hot summer weather, fruit will be damaged
and might drop prematurely from the tree.
Apple and Pear Trees
Late winter or early spring is the best time to prune apples
and pears, but you can prune until mid-summer. Pruning later will
stimulate new growth that probably will be damaged by early fall
frosts.
Mites and aphids can be serious problems. Mites causes damage
to foliage and in some cases to fruit. Aphids suck sap from apple
and pear trees. If you had problems with mites or aphids last
summer, spray dormant oil on the trees NOW.
About two weeks after petal drop is the time to control the
larvae of codling moths on apples. These pests infest fruit causing
the familiar wormy apple. Spray every two weeks with
malathion to prevent this problem.
You can look for the bacterial disease, fireblight, to be a problem
this year if we have a warm, wet spring -- warm enough to bring the bees
out. Fireblight is spread by bees, as they visit the flowers. If it's
cold and wet, don't worry: The bees won't be out. If you need to spray,
use streptomycin sulfate and spray just when flower buds begin to turn
pink, before they come all the way out.
Stone Fruits
Stone fruits consist of peach, plum, cherry and apricot.
Peach tree borer is the most serious threat. It attacks peach
and cherry trees and, to a lesser extent, plum. This insect larva
will burrow into the lower part of the trunk causing damage and, if
sufficient numbers invade the trunk, they can kill the tree. Often
oozing sap or a wet spot on the bark is an external indication that
borers might be present.
Spraying with Dursban, Lorsban and Lindane should provide some
control. Make the first application around July 4 and the second
treatment about August 10. These are the dates when adults should
be laying eggs. Once the eggs hatch and the larvae invade the
trunk, the sprays won't work. Follow label directions and only
spray the lower part of the trunk, avoiding the fruit or foliage.
If you've planted fruit trees in a lawn area, try to keep the
grass from growing up to the trunk. Because bluegrass lawns are
usually watered heavily, all of this water can cause the trunk of
trees, such as apple, to rot and die. By leaving at least a one-foot area around the tree free of
grass, you usually can avoid this
problem.
These care tips should produce a good fruit crop, assuming
that:
- The tree was planted correctly and it is well established.
- You planted two varieties of apples, pears, plums and sweet
cherries to get cross pollination and a successful crop. Any
flowers that did not pollinate drop off soon after petals fall.
Only about one blossom in 20 on an apple tree usually produces
fruit. Those that did pollinate begin to swell as fruit starts to
form. If in doubt about which varieties will cross-pollinate, call
the Colorado State University Extension office in your
county and ask for a fact sheet titled "Pollination of Fruit
Trees."
For more information on Gardening, contact your
local Colorado State University Extension office.
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