Perennial weeds can be particularly difficult to manage in the apple orchard. These plants are defined as being able to live for more than two years, which is due to their abilities to produce large root systems or other underground storage structures, such as bulbs, tubers, and rhizomes. These structures facilitate the spread of perennials in orchards, although many species also produce seed that support dispersal.

Sprayers must be regularly checked over to ensure that proper maintenance has been carried out and that no outstanding repairs need to be done. Faulty sprayers contribute to increased drift levels and waste money through inefficiency and overuse of chemicals.

Precision pruning is the first step in precision crop load management. This video covers the basics of how to prune your tall spindle apple orchard to reduce the bud load on your trees.

CCE ENYCHP vegetable specialist Daniel Donahue was recently interviewed by Good Fruit Grower at the Washington State Tree Fruit Association's Annual Meeting in Wenatchee, WA.  

Dan discusses bitter pit suppression and Cornell's Apogee trials in this Good Fruit Grower interview.

Visit the following link to view the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC6z1a7MF9k

This webinar will show you how to prune and renovate old, unmanaged apple trees.

The Malusim app allows you to enter spray records, use the fruit growth rate model, the carbohydrate thinning model, and the irrigation model.  The tool uses the Cornell evapotranspiration model and weather data off your station to determine how much irrigation is needed for each block.

Kerik Cox's lab will be conducting a fire blight survey again this year, investigating streptomycin resistance and strain distribution across NY State and New England.

Presentations from the 2019 ENYCHP Eastern New York Fruit & Vegetable Conference held February 19-21 for the tree fruit sections.

Cold injury is a concern for apple production in Eastern New York, where extremely cold mid-winter temperatures and dramatic temperature fluctuations in the late fall and early spring are not uncommon.  Let's review the types of cold damage we might expect to see in rootstock tissues, and discuss which rootstocks might be most appropriate for dealing with the cold in a high density production system.  

These videos describe two different methods for grafting apple trees.

It's looking like a difficult storage year for Hudson Valley Honeycrisp Producers

Reports are starting to filter in of excessive Honeycrisp cullage out of storage this season.  The predominant defect reported is bitter pit, a surprise to some following observations that this season's crop appeared relatively clean at harvest.  Our ENYCHP tree fruit team is currently in the 3rd year of our comprehensive Honeycrisp/Bitter Pit survey study, and our results to date shed some light on how 2018 compares to '16 and '17. 

During the 2018 growing season, we maintained an IPM trapping network in Northern New York, ranging from Chazy in Northern Clinton County to Rexford in Southern Saratoga County.  From May through mid-September, we sent weekly e-alerts of our trap counts for oriental fruit moth, codling moth, obliquebanded leafroller, and apple maggot.  Now that harvest is winding down, I would like to review this season's pest trends, and discuss what we observed from our hail netting trials in the Champlain Valley.

Excessive rain in New York and the rest of the Eastern US experienced in the second half of both the 2017 and 2018 growing seasons favored the development of Marssonina Leaf Blotch (MLB), a disease caused by Marssonina coronaria (sexual stage Diplocarpon mali). In early September 2017, in the lower-Hudson Valley and south NY we found MLB late in the summer in more than several apple orchards on Mutsu, Honeycrisp, NY-1 (SnapDragon), NY-2 (RubyFrost), Gala, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Pristine, Grimes Golden, Northern Spy, Stayman Winesap, Tompkins King, and others. The alarming outcome was defoliation of lower part of the tree crowns, especially where moisture due to heavy dew or sprinkler irrigation was present up until midday.

As we jump into another harvest season, let's review some storage suggestions from Dr. Chris Watkins, and results from our own observations and research in Eastern New York, for some of our major cultivars. 

Apple growers in New York are starting to see a new crop insurance option in some counties, Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO). I had a couple of questions about it in Ulster County last fall. Now that we are nearing time to sign up for crop insurance again, let's dig in a little deeper - what is SCO and why might you consider it?

Near the end of the June, I attended the summer PGR meeting and orchard tour that was held in Geneva, where Dr. Poliana Francescatto reviewed some of her recent work with PGR's. After a detailed discussion of floral bud induction and initiation indoors, we headed out to the research orchard to view a handful of her current field trials.  In this article, we will review some of the key takeaways from that tour. 

Recommendations for Harvest Management Plant Growth Regulators in Eastern New York for 2018

Dan Donahue & Mike Basedow, CCE-ENYCHP

As we enter the warm summer months, you might consider trialing the precision irrigation model on your farm to improve tree growth in your new plantings and maximize fruit size in your mature blocks.

Increasingly tree fruit growers in NYS are looking at hail netting as a tool for reducing the impact of hail in their orchards.  Hail netting is already widespread in Australia, Europe and is increasing in popularity in Washington State.   Netting is used in those places, not only to protect the fruit from hail, but also from sun damage, and insect/pest damage and to increase the quality of the fruit crop.  While hail netting seems to have promise, the growing conditions for tree fruit in New York are not the same as Australia, Europe and Washington.  The Cornell Cooperative Extension Lake Ontario Fruit Team has recently received a grant to study hail netting in New York and its impact on pests and disease, yields, and quality of the fruit and to better understand the costs and labor needs for managing a hail netting system in a New York orchard.

Last week while we were nearing petal fall in the Champlain Valley, a grower and I were discussing when he ought to take his honey bees out of the orchard, which led us to discussing the role wild bees are playing in his orchard. These wild bees help pollinate our crop every year, so I think it is worth reviewing some of the different kinds of bees we can expect to see at bloom, and what we can do to encourage their visits. 

Cornell Extension Specialists are being asked with increasing frequency to investigate both chronic decline and rapid collapse of apple trees in young, high-density plantings in all regions of New York State.  Symptoms of chronic decline can include poor growth, off color foliage, and a generally unthrifty appearance that worsens over several years.  The death of an (apparently) previously healthy tree over the course of just a few weeks has been termed Rapid Apple Decline (RAD).  While the symptoms of chronic decline are subtler in some cases, RAD is eye-catching.  Afflicted trees appear to "burn up" mid-summer after having set and sized a normal crop load.  RAD may be a subset of the chronic decline condition or a completely different problem; causation is unknown at this time.

Dr. Poliana Francescatto (Cornell NYSAES), Win Cowgill, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers and Owner of Win Enterprises International, LLC Consulting, and Dan Donahue, CCE-ENYCHP

Dr. Poliana Francescatto (Cornell NYSAES) & Win Cowgill, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers and Owner of Win Enterprises International, LLC Consulting

Spray Mixing Instructions Considering Tree Row Volume

Terence Robinson and Poliana Francescatto

Cornell University

Win Cowgill

Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University

Tree fruit producers generate substantial quantities of empty pesticide containers over the course of the growing season.  Back in the "old days", paper bags found their way into a burn barrel, and plastic jugs into a landfill.  Neither option is viable today, so what to do?  Landfall disposal is still an option for some types of pesticide containers, and recycling is available for others, but first, here's what's legal in New York State.

Early weed control is a critical component of establishing a new planting. Newly planted fruit trees compete poorly against fast growing weeds for water and nutrients. This competition can severely limit a new block's growth, which can ultimately reduce potential yields in the third year by 50 percent. Weeds also harbor insects and diseases, provide habitat for rodents, and can serve as hosts for viruses, further complicating effective orchard management.

The early ‘worm' complex found in commercial apple during the pre-bloom period begins with the emergence of the speckled green fruit worm (SGFW).

On behalf of the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, this article presents information on the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule and answers frequently-asked questions from producers.

ENYCHP hosted a NEWA training workshop in Voorheesville in April 2018. Here are some of the main takeaways from the training.