Good Fruit Grower

February 1

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from fighting frost. He asks growers for their spray records, production figures, and hand-thinning costs for each block for the past three years so he can understand what the thinning program has been, what the grower has been spending, and what's been working and what hasn't. He enters the information into a spreadsheet. "It's a template that you can modify and tweak in the spring when you're looking at bloom so you can make a better, informed decision," he said. Griffith finds bloom sprays to be more effective in promoting return bloom than the petal fall sprays. For Honeycrisp, he recommends two to three applications terms of the biennial bearing cycle and we might have an even tougher time trying to manage it with growth regulators than we would other varieties," he said. • o see a video on Robinson describing the most profitable orchard designs, visit http://bit. ly/1aIN1tg. T CYD-X® HP and madex® hp Double Trouble for Codling and Oriental Fruit Moths. "Delaying harvest does nothing. What you get is crummy little fruit that goes into the bin without any quality." —Dr. Terence Robinson of lime sulfur during bloom, followed by NAA, Sevin, and Ethrel (ethephon) at petal fall and again when the fruitlets are 10 to 15 millimeters in diameter. He also recommends an Ethrel application 45 to 50 days after bloom to promote return bloom. Kevin Larson of Roche Fruit, Yakima, said he has no pollinizers in his Honeycrisp blocks, which makes them easier to thin, and the fruit still has good seed counts. He applies lime sulfur two to three times as a bloom thinner. High stakes Tory Schmidt, research associate with the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission, said Honeycrisp is no harder to chemically thin than Red Delicious or Golden Delicious, though not as easy to thin as Braeburn or Granny Smith. However, the stakes in terms of not thinning the crop load properly are much higher in Honeycrisp. In trials, bloom-time applications of lime sulfur or fish oil and lime sulfur clearly improved fruit size and fruit quality. Schmidt reported on trials he has done, using GA3 (gibberellins) to try to break the biennial bearing cycle. The concept is that if bloom is light this year, it is likely to be heavy next year, and GA3 can be applied to inhibit next year's bloom. With Fuji, regardless of this year's crop load, there was a nice reduction in the following year's bloom from the GA3 treatment. But with Honeycrisp, even when all the flowers were removed, there was no response from the GA3 at all the following year. "What that suggests is that Honeycrisp might be even more stubborn than Fuji in www.goodfruit.com The most potent codling moth and oriental fruit moth viruses...ever. Introducing Madex HP for control of codling moth and oriental fruit moth larvae. Now you have a selection of highly effective granuloviruses. So potent they can be used at ultra-low rates for cost-effective control. Ideal for managing insecticide resistance and residues. Four-hour reentry interval (REI) and zero plant harvest interval (PHI). OMRI® Listed and NOP Approved. ] [ © 2014 Certis USA www.CertisUSA.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER FEBRUARY 1, 2014 15

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