Ontario Agriculture

The network for agriculture in Ontario, Canada

To spray or not to spray

First off - I am not a horticultural farmer. Just wheat, corn, beans, hay, oats, barley. No fruits - I just see the "fruit" of my labour.
We have two apples trees in our backyard that I would like to "save" but we are considering replacing them with maples. Tent caterpillars and some sort of scab or rot are the issue. The caterpillars I can deal with (trim or burn) but the rotten scabs are killing me.
Two regulatory issues are bugging me: the need to save historic seeds or Species at Risk, and the Cosmetic Pesticide Ban. Since I do not "sell" the apples... you know the rest.
The variety of apple - the original Macintosh. Beautiful apple but highly susceptible to scab.
Hort people - what are my options? Cut or make another attempt next year?
Thanks for any input.
Wayne

Views: 25

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Peter Gredig on September 7, 2009 at 1:38am
Hey Wayne - scab is a tough one when you only have a few trees and no orchard sprayer. The best advice I can give is to prune aggressively to get as much air as possible moving through the tree. It's just like white mold in soys - air is the best medicine. You can use a backpack sprayer with some fungicide like Polyram a few times a year to keep scab under control, but it's tough to get rid of it completely. This was probably the perfect year for scab - wet fall last year and ongoing wet this year, so I wouldn't give up yet.

Peter
Permalink Reply by Wayne Black on September 7, 2009 at 4:54am
Peter,
I aggressively pruned last week and my wife says it looks like a bad hair cut so there is more trimming required. My thought was more sunlight to the centre of the tree would be good.
The other advice I have read is to clean clean clean under the trees. Rotten apples, branches, leaves, everything related to the tree. Just finished doing that and picked all the apples off the tree - then cut the grass short. I will still have to clean up the leaves later this fall.
Give it one more year and see what happens I guess. Thanks for the advice.

Wayne

Peter Gredig said:
The best advice I can give is to prune aggressively to get as much air as possible moving through the tree. It's just like white mold in soys - air is the best medicine.
Peter

▶ Reply to Discussion

RSS

Agriculture Headlines from Farms.com Canada East News - click on title for full story

Failing Grade for an Out of Touch Federal Budget

The 2024 federal budget is woefully bloated with a deficit of $40 billion dollars and yet falls short in addressing Canadian farmers’ real concerns. “Once again, the federal government has missed the opportunity to support agriculture and those that work in the industry. The real issues impacting us are the cumulative effect of the carbon tax on everything that we do, the growing need to have coordinated grain research, increased funding for the PMRA, and industry efficiency through an improved Canada Grains Act,” stated Daryl Fransoo, Chair of the Wheat Growers Association. The federal government has worked to defeat C-234, a bill that would provide immediate relief to grain farmers from the negative impact of the carbon tax on grain drying. The government fails to understand that these costs impact grain farmers and their ability to grow grain for domestic and export consumption. The government was forced to change their policy on the Advanced Payments Program and increase the int

A Message from Our Executive Director: Spring 2024

Throughout the winter, we took the opportunity to engage with many growers at various meetings and events around the province. Growers are facing many challenges heading into the 2024 growing season including significant dryness in some areas, high costs of production, and weaker prices for some major crops. We know that these factors are placing pressure on growers’ expected margins for 2024. While prices of some major crops are significantly lower since last growing season, most pulse prices have held up fairly well. Prices for green lentils, green peas, and chickpeas have been particularly strong. In addition, India has come back to the market for pea imports after a hiatus since 2017, which has given some support to yellow pea prices since December 2023. Current estimates are that India could import 800,000 to 1 million tonnes of peas from December 2023 to June 2024, while import restrictions there are temporarily lifted. At the same time, Canada’s largest market for yellow peas –

Mobile skills lab to promote ag manufacturing

A mobile skills lab will travel around Saskatchewan to promote careers in agriculture manufacturing. Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada (AMC) will create a virtual reality experience with the lab visiting school campuses and community events to promote industry careers to students, parents, and teachers. In addition to growing the workforce, the mobile skills lab will showcase professional development opportunities to those already working in the agricultural manufacturing industry. AMC President Donna Boyd said the industry has seen huge growth and this in turn has increased the demand for talent “A career in agriculture offers the opportunity to be one of the most successful industries in Canada—one which protects the environment, ensures global food security and fuels the future of food through innovation,” Boyd said. “AMC is directly addressing the needs of our members and our industry through the Careers in Ag initiative. The Saskatchewan Government is providing $300,000 to

Ag content lacking in the Federal Budget

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) was disappointed to see insufficient investment in Canadian agriculture in the 2024 budget. CFA President Keith Currie said farmers continue to struggle under the weight of high-interest rates, a price on carbon for essential farming activities, for which farmers have no viable alternatives, and an increased risk of extreme weather events. He said these challenges are testing the limits and effectiveness of risk management programs. “While we understand there are competing priorities for government funds, with erratic weather and high prices tremendously increasing the risk profile of Canadian agriculture, the government can ill-afford to ignore food production and Canadian farmers,” Currie said. Some positives in the budget included a re-commitment to launch of consultations on interoperability more commonly known as right to repair, carbon rebates for small businesses and previously announced funding for temporary improvements to the A

Keep it Clean launches 2024 Product Advisory

Canadian agriculture must pay attention to export market regulations, an industry rep said

© 2024   Created by Darren Marsland.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service