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Spring treatment plums in order to combat diseases and pests are an essential element of caring for these fruit trees. It is necessary to correctly determine the time and frequency of spraying, carefully select preparations, taking into account some popular advice - and then the trees will be pleased with healthy and beautiful, as well as safe for consumption, fruits.
Spring treatment of plums from pests and diseases: goals and objectives
In spring, you need to pay special attention to sanitary measures in the garden. First of all, this is a preventive treatment of plums, among other trees, against the most common diseases, as well as the destruction of overwintered pests and their larvae.It is in the spring that the foundation for the future harvest is laid, and the competent actions of the gardener will be the key to its health and abundance.
When to spray a plum
It is customary to adhere to the following scheme for treating plums from diseases and pests in the spring:
- in March – before the sap begins to actively move in the trunks and branches of trees;
- in April, at the stage of the appearance of flower buds;
- in Maywhen the plant has already faded.
How many times to spray a plum
It should be borne in mind that preparations for treating plums are used at different intervals:
- some of them (mainly those directed against various diseases - Bordeaux mixture, Cartotsid, Cuprozan, Homitsin) are enough to be applied once in the spring at the specified time;
- treatment of plums with other preparations - mainly those that resist pests (Inta-Vir, karbofos) - must be repeated after a certain time;
- plum processing copper sulfate carried out systematically at all stages of preventive protection of trees in the spring.
A weak concentration of the drug will not give the desired effect. By treating a plum with an overly concentrated solution, you can, on the contrary, seriously harm the plant, even causing it to suffer a chemical burn.
How to treat plums in spring: disease prevention
In order for measures to treat plum trees against diseases and pests in the spring to be effective, it is important to choose the right preparations and spray the trees with them at the designated time.
How to treat plums before flowering
It is recommended to spray plums before flowering:
- copper sulfate (1% solution) to resist gummosis;
- Bordeaux mixture (3% solution) to combat moniliosis, marsupial disease;
- Inta-Virom (1 tablet per 10 liters of water) or the drug “30 plus” (according to instructions) against silkworms and aphids;
- karbofos (80 g per 10 liters of water) for pest control.
How to spray plums during flowering
When the flowers bloom, treating plums against a number of dangerous diseases - moniliosis, clasterosporiasis, marsupial disease - will be effective. One of the following options is perfect for this:
- copper sulfate (100 g dissolved in 10 liters of water);
- Homicin;
- Carticide;
- Cuprosan.
How to treat plums after flowering
Processing plums after flowering involves spraying:
- Inta-Virom (in the proportion indicated above) against silkworms;
- Decis (2 ml per 10 liters of water) or karbofos (diluted in the same way as for treating plums before flowering) from a number of pests;
- copper sulfate against gummosis (repeated treatment).
How to spray plums against pests in spring
Now we need to take a closer look at how to combat pests on plums in the spring, using examples of the most common of them.
How to treat plums for worms in fruits
“Wormy” plum fruits, spoiled from the inside, are a common problem caused by a number of pests: apple psyllid psyllid, aphids, fatty stems, and fruit moths.
How to protect plums in the spring from codling moths and sawflies, which are especially successful in this field, is worth a separate discussion, although some general measures against worms in fruits are also effective against them.
To combat these pests it is recommended:
- in early spring, before flowering, treat plums with solutions of nitrate and karbofos;
- if for some reason this period is missed, you can treat the trees immediately after flowering with systemic preparations containing copper and directed against all lepidopterans and their larvae (Khomus or Oksikhom with the addition of Inta-Vir);
- good results can be achieved using formulations that include durspan, zolone, phosphamide or metathione.
How to spray plums against worms: folk remedies
There are also folk recipes for compositions that can be used to treat plums in the spring against worms without using chemicals:
- Yarrow (2.5 kg of fresh leaves, stems, flowers) should be crushed, pour 10 liters of water and boil for half an hour. Dissolve laundry soap (about 20 g) in the strained, cooled broth. Shake thoroughly and spray the trees.
- Artemisia grass (1 kg) fill with water (1 l). Leave for 1 day. Strain, re-dilute with an equal volume of water and process the plum.
- Prepare and use in the same way infusion from tops or shoots of tomatoes (only initially you need to take 5 liters of water per 1 kg of plant material).
- Dry shag tobacco powder (400 g) it is recommended to pour 10 liters of hot water and leave for a day. Strain the mixture, add water, bringing the volume to 10 liters. Mix with laundry soap (50 g). Spray the plum against pests.
- Onion skins (200 g) soak in water and leave for half a day. Mix 200 g of ground garlic cloves with the same amount of shag and add to the prepared husk. Pour 10 liters of water, boil for 2 hours. Cool and strain.Add water until the volume of the decoction is 10 liters. Mix in 100 g of grated soap, then you can process the plum.
Treating plums against codling moths
The common codling moth is a small gray butterfly with a brownish tint, resembling a house moth, but is slightly larger. Active emergence in spring begins immediately after the end of the flowering period of plum trees. The female lays eggs at dusk, one egg per ovary - similarly, one butterfly can spoil up to fifty fruits.
The hatched small caterpillars are initially off-white but gradually change color to red. They make their way inside the fruit (a drop of gum can be seen at the point of penetration), damage the seed and eat away the pulp around it, filling the resulting passages with the products of their vital activity. As a result, the fruits lose their marketable appearance, rot and fall off en masse.
The timing of treating plums against codling moths in the spring coincides with the beginning of the summer of the first butterflies. During this period, it is recommended to hang bait in the treetops - jars of sweet fermented compote or kvass, opening them in the evening and removing caught insects in the morning.
At this stage, it is recommended to spray plums against codling moths with pyrmetroids (Permethrin, Cypermethrin) and neonicotinoids (Calypso, Aktara, Mospilan). These drugs can be combined so that they enhance each other's effect. After three weeks, it is recommended to repeat the plum treatment with a new combination of drugs.
In the spring, it is also advisable to periodically fumigate the garden at night or at dusk with the smoke of smoldering straw mixed with potato, tomato tops, or wormwood grass (a couple of hours at a time).
In the fall, it is necessary to dig up the tree trunk and remove shoots; during the period of fruit ripening, remove carrion from under the trees, and later - fallen leaves. Preventive measures taken in the spring are the most effective way to prevent mass destruction by this pest.
Protecting plums from sawfly
The yellow plum sawfly is a tiny (up to half a centimeter in size) brown-yellow “fly” with transparent wings. The pest's years in the spring begin before the flowers open. Each female lays 50–60 eggs in flower buds. The hatched larvae eat the ovaries - each of them can destroy up to 5 fruits during its life cycle.
The black sawfly is a pest that looks similar to the yellow one, but has a black body and wings. Its larvae (about 30 individuals from 1 female) feed on plum pulp, also damaging the pit. When the damaged fruit falls from the branch, the larva moves into the ground and pupates.
Treatment of plums in the spring against sawfly implies an emphasis on biological products (Lepitocid, Entobacterin).
If the damage is very strong, then the plum will have to be treated against the plum sawfly in the spring with organophosphorus pesticides (karbofos, metaphos, etc.). However, we should not forget that these substances are toxic, although effective, so ideally it is better to avoid without them.
Useful information about how and with what you can treat plums from pests can be obtained by watching the video
https://youtu.be/MkR6wmLXpKo
How to treat plum blossoms against pests
It should be remembered that during the flowering period, treating plums against pests with chemicals is excluded. To attract beneficial pollinating insects, you can sprinkle the tree crown with honey diluted in water (30 g per 10 l), and in order to improve the general condition of the plant, add a microfertilizer tablet or 1 tbsp to the solution. mineral mixture.
Whitewashing plum in spring
An important sanitary measure of the spring cycle is whitewashing the plum tree trunk and its skeletal branches.
Is it necessary to bleach plums in spring?
This procedure is mandatory - without it, tree care will not be complete. In the spring, whitewashing protects against sunburn, slows down bud opening (which is especially valuable during periods of sudden temperature changes), and most importantly, destroys egg laying and insect pests overwintering under the bark.
How can you bleach a plum?
It is necessary that the composition of the whitewash solution include:
- latex substance (bustilate), which creates an airtight layer on the surface of the bark that is invulnerable to precipitation;
- white pigment (chalk, kaolin).
2 parts of the binder should be mixed dry with 1 part of the pigment, and then diluted with water to the thickness of ordinary paint.
You can bleach plums with an aqueous solution of slaked lime (2 kg per 10 liters), with the addition of copper sulfate (300 g) and clay or casein glue.
How to bleach plums in spring
Before the procedure, you should clean the tree trunk circles and slightly rake the soil away from the trunk. It is recommended to whitewash the trunk and the lower part of the skeletal branches to the height where the hand can reach - but in general no higher than 2 m. When the solution on the tree bark dries a little, the trunks will need to be covered with earth again.
Conclusion
Treating plum trees against pests and diseases in the spring is a set of mandatory measures, an important part of which, along with preventive tree care, is spraying with chemicals and folk remedies to fight for the harvest. The general condition and successful fruiting of trees, as well as the health of people whose food will include fruits grown in the garden, depend on how competently and correctly these actions are carried out.
