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Every year, fruit orchards are attacked by many pests and diseases. Throughout the warm season, gardeners fight this problem with all available means. Treating the garden in early spring is especially important, because it is during this period that it is possible to nip all misfortunes in the bud before they have time to wake up and multiply. In order for the effect to be long-lasting and provide one hundred percent protection, trees and shrubs will have to be sprayed more than once: only in the spring months the treatment is repeated three to four times. An approximate spraying scheme will help the gardener not to get confused and forget anything.
How and with what to treat fruit trees in the spring will be discussed in this article. A calendar of orchard treatments by month will also be offered here, and popular preparations and remedies for pests and garden diseases will be discussed.
Garden preparation
The work of a gardener should begin in the first days of spring. When the last snow is still on the branches and the paths are frozen, it’s time to go out into the garden for the first inspection. It's time to shake off the snow caps from the crown so that the melting heavy snow does not break off the shoots starting to grow. You can also take pruning shears with you, trim the crowns, cut out damaged or dried branches.
The gardener must inspect each fruit tree and each bush to identify areas of peeled bark, tear off mummified fruits, and remove insect nests. If there are hollows or large cracks on the trunk, they need to be cleaned out, because it is in such shelters that insect larvae like to overwinter, where pests lay eggs.
When it gets a little warmer, you need to whiten the tree trunks. It would also be useful to collect last year’s leaves, garbage, and trimmed branches - all this should be taken away from the garden and burned.
As a rule, trees are whitewashed in the fall, and in the spring they only correct the applied layer of lime. Whitewash can cope with fungi, lichens, eggs and insect larvae.
You can prepare a mixture for whitewashing trees in the spring by mixing:
- 2 kg of lime or lime paste;
- 10 liters of water;
- 1 kg of clay;
- 300 grams of copper sulfate.
The resulting composition is thoroughly mixed and the trunks and lower shoots of fruit trees are painted with it.
In early spring, you can also treat the crown of trees. For these purposes, an old proven remedy - regular diesel fuel - is perfect. Sprayed With diesel fuel, the branches are covered with a thin oily film, under which the larvae and spores simply suffocate and die.
Stages and timing of spraying
Spring treatment of the garden with chemicals should begin when stable heat has established outside - the air temperature during the day will remain at +5 degrees, and at night it will not drop below zero.
You should not postpone spraying - when the buds begin to bloom and sap flow in the tree is activated, you will have to reduce the concentration of the drugs. The very first treatment is most effective - while the trees are “sleeping” and insect larvae and infectious agents are still inactive.
An approximate calendar for spraying a fruit and berry garden looks like this:
- Treatment of trees and shrubs in early spring, before the buds of the plants swell.
- Spraying flowering trees and shrubs.
- Treatment of plants after flowering.
- During the period of ovary formation and fruit growth.
In any case, it is recommended to spray trees in calm, dry weather, in the absence of strong solar activity (on a cloudy day, before 10 a.m., after sunset).
First spraying of the garden
The first spring treatment of fruit trees and berry bushes should begin before the buds open. This stage is considered the most important, because the entire further spraying scheme will depend on its effectiveness.
The most dangerous garden diseases in early spring: black cancer, coccomycosis, scab, anthracnose, moniliosis. Among the pests at this time you can find soil insects, codling moths, aphids, caterpillars, and mites.
For the first spring spraying, it is recommended to use one of the old and proven means, such as urea, copper sulfate, Bordeaux mixture (“blue spray”). If these drugs turn out to be ineffective, you will have to purchase chemicals: Anabasine, Trichlorol, Strobi, Teldor, which cope well with parasites and fungi.
Modern gardeners are often against chemical garden protection products; a homemade solution can be recommended. It is prepared like this:
- You need to pour two stacks of crushed tobacco leaves into a three-liter jar.
- Add a handful of onion and garlic peels, pine needles and chopped orange peels.
- All this should be filled with hot water (about 70 degrees), covered with a nylon lid and put in a dark place for about a week.
- After a week, the solution is filtered through several layers of gauze and diluted with ten liters of water.
- The resulting product is mixed and 100 grams of finely grated tar soap are poured into it.
The prepared solution is sprayed on fruit trees and berry bushes, repeating the treatment after 10-12 days until the garden blooms.
Spraying the garden before and during flowering
Immediately before flowering, orchards are usually treated against codling moth caterpillars, scab and blight. At this stage, karbofos is very effective.To treat trees, take a 10% solution, diluting 70 grams of the substance in 10 liters of water.
Immediately after flowering, the trees are treated again, this time to protect against various diseases. Along with the blooming flowers, mites crawl out of their shelters, from which you can protect yourself with colloidal sulfur. To prepare the solution, you need to take 80 grams of 70 percent sulfur and dilute it in 10 liters of soapy water. If ticks are not destroyed in time, they can cause irreparable harm to the orchard.
Spraying at the stage of fruit formation
The processing of fruit trees and shrubs does not end there. When the ovaries are formed, spraying is carried out a third time - the plants are protected from remaining insects and various putrefactive infections.
The third treatment of the garden should not be carried out for preventive purposes, because chemicals at this stage can greatly harm the environmental friendliness of the crop - toxins accumulate very well in the fruits. Before spraying begins, trees and shrubs are carefully inspected, trying to identify traces of infection or the presence of insects.
To treat trees at the stage of ovary formation, it is recommended to use:
- copper oxychloride;
- Bordeaux mixture;
- urea;
- combined chemical preparations with a wide spectrum of action;
- biological preparations that do not harm the garden and are not toxic.
Rules and recommendations
It is understandable that the garden needs preventative treatment after winter. Now the main thing is to carry out spraying correctly so as not to harm the trees and shrubs.
It is recommended to follow these rules for spring garden treatment:
- spray the tree completely, “from head to toe.” To do this, first treat the crown, then select large branches and spray them one by one in the direction from the edge to the trunk. Lastly, the trunk and the ground in the tree trunk circle are irrigated.
- If it rains within 24 hours after treatment, you will have to repeat everything again.
- It is necessary to prepare the solution after certain calculations: an adult tree will need about 5.5 liters of liquid, 1.5 liters will be enough for a young tree or large berry bush.
- For spraying, special cylinders, pumps and sprayers are used. After work, they must be washed with clean water and dried.
- The gardener must use personal protective equipment: mask, goggles, gloves. After processing the garden, you should thoroughly wash your face and hands with soap.
Conclusion
Absolutely all gardeners and summer residents face the question of how to treat fruit trees against diseases and pests every spring. Today, the choice of special means is quite large: these include chemicals, folk remedies, and modern bio-insecticides. It is much more important to spray at the appropriate time, before infections and pests have time to spread and cause irreparable harm.
Good afternoon! I have an old cherry tree (about 40 years old) The branches began to dry out Glue appears on the trunk The bark peels off Vertical wounds appeared at the bottom of the trunk What to do
Good afternoon
The bark of cherries bursts quite often. There are not many reasons why cracks appear. In most cases, trunks crack due to a sharp temperature change in the winter-spring period, frost damage or sunburn in winter. More information about the causes of cracks, as well as treatment methods, can be found in the article https://mygarden-en.desigusxpro.com/sad-i-ogorod/derevya/pochemu-treskaetsya-chereshnya.html.
The appearance of gum (sticky substance) is a natural reaction to lesions. Treat the tree and the gum will disappear.