Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
If you want to grow fruit varieties not described in this topic, of which
there are literally thousands, do your homework! Find out if those crops and
varieties are likely to do well in your location. Working hard only to watch
your trees die and crops rot in the orchard is not much fun and certainly not
profitable for commercial growers. Choose crops and varieties that give you
every chance for success. Experiment, but do so cautiously. Try one or a few
individual trees or bushes of questionable or unknown disease resistance be-
fore investing heavily in them.
While selecting the right variety for your orchard is your primary line of
defense, the following strategies will also help you manage diseases.
Frequent and Regular Scouting
Even in a conventional orchard with an arsenal of highly effective fungicides
and bactericides, regular and frequent scouting during the growing season is
essential to produce a healthy, usable crop. Scouting is even more important
for organic orchardists. If you wait until your trees or fruit are severely in-
fected, you can do little but wait for next year's crop.
Invest in a good-quality jeweler's loupe (magnifying hand lens) that
provides about 10X magnification, and obtain a journal or a three-ring bind-
er filled with preprinted observation forms. For pest scouting, a piece of
white poster board and a short stick are valuable sampling tools, as we'll
discuss in the next chapter. Record weather data. You will likely find that
the data you collect on-site is more accurate and valuable for your purposes
than that reported regionally. Weather stations are available in many forms
ranging in price from under $100 to several thousands of dollars. Even many
of the inexpensive models automatically record temperature and precipit-
ation data. If available, a computer text, spreadsheet, or database program
makes your records easy to organize, search, and update.
Record dates of bud swell, green tip, bloom, and harvest, as well as in-
formation on plant vigor, flower and fruit set, fruit quality, pests and pest
damage, and disease symptoms. Also include daily high and low temperat-
ures, precipitation, and humidity. Over a few years, you will discover patterns
