BETTER FRUIT 



EDITOR: W. H. WALTON 



STATE ASSOCIATE EDITORS 



OREGON— C. 1. Lewis, Horticulturist. 



WASHINGTON — Pr. A. L. Melander, Entomologist; 

 O. M. Morris. Horticulturist. Pullman. 



COLORADO — C. P. Gillette. Director and Entomologist ; 

 E. B. House, Irrigation Expert, State Agricultural College, 

 Fort Collins, 



ARIZONA— F. .1- Cricler, Horticulturist, Tucson. 



MONTANA— H Thombcr. Victor. 



CALIFORNIA— C. W. Woodworth, Entomologist, Berke- 

 ley: W. H. Volck. Entomologist. Watsonrille: Leon D. 

 Batchelor, Horticulturist. Riverside. 



INDIANA— H. S. Jackson, Pathologist. Lafayette. 



An Illustrated Magazine Devoted to the Interests 



of Modern, Progressive Fruit Growing 



and Marketing. 



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Entered as second-class matter April 22, 1918, 



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the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. 



Volume XV 



Portland, Oregon, February, 1921 



Number 8 



Success in Spraying 



By H. P. Barss, Plant Pathologist, Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station 



SPRAYING success and spraying fail- 

 ure are often not far apart. Neigh- 

 boring orchards frequently illus- 

 trate this fact but that is not the point 

 this article desires to bring out. Rather 

 it is the intention to point out that the 

 secret of success in spraying depends 

 on attention to certain things which, 

 although apparently minor details, are 

 after all the big essentials upon which 

 the difference between success and fail- 

 ure depend. 



The Pacific Northwest is famous for 

 the perfection of its apples and pears, 

 but this perfection is won only through 

 the attention of the fruit growers to the 

 details of careful spraying. It is safe 

 to say that successful spraying has 

 reached its highest standards in this 

 section of the country but this has come 

 only after years of hard experience in 

 the fight against pests and diseases, and 

 years of scientific experimentation on 

 methods of control. The high degree 

 of freedom from blemishes now reached 

 by the fruit in some of our most fa- 

 mous orchard sections is the direct re- 

 sult of the intelligent application of a 

 well-established spray program. There 

 are however, many new orchard sections 

 and many orchards just coining into 

 bearing whose owners have not yet 

 mastered the essentials of successful 

 control and the years ahead will be 

 years of discouragement for them un- 

 less they learn the importance of atten- 

 tion to details in the battle against the 

 enemies of the fruit crop. 



Spraying a Science. 

 Spraying is a science. That is, it has 

 its foundation in a scientific knowledge 

 of the pests and diseases to be con- 

 trolled and of the way in which the 

 spray materials in use affect these pests 

 and diseases. One cannot be successful 

 if one sprays "on general principles." 

 Every single application has its particu- 

 lar reason for existence and the growers 

 who spray successfully understand the 

 whys, the whens and hows. It is not 

 possible in a brief discussion like this 

 to give a treatise on spraying but per- 

 haps a few hints can be given that will 

 help some to a better comprehension of 

 the principles that underlie the spray- 

 ing game. 



Prevention Not Cure. 



In fighting orchard troubles cure is 

 not possible. Once the infection has oc- 

 curred or the insect has entered or at- 

 tacked the fruit no spray will heal the 

 injury. Every effort o fthe orchardist 

 must be directed toward prevention. 

 The method of prevention to be em- 

 ployed will depend on the nature of the 

 pest and its life history and method of 

 dissemination. There are some pests 

 that are controlled by direct application 

 like San Jose scale, aphids, or to some 

 extent* powdery mildew. Others are 

 controlled by covering the tree or its 

 foliage and fruit with a material which 

 acts as a protective poison. Such sprays 

 are used in combating codling moth, 

 apple and pear scab, apple tree an- 

 thracnose, etc. The important thing 

 here is to get a coating over every par- 

 ticle of surface so that the baby worm, 

 for example, has only a poisoned sur- 

 face to browse on, or the fungous spore 

 no point of attack that is not covered 

 by the death-dealing chemical. By spray- 

 ing we place a poison barrier between 

 the parasite and its natural feeding 

 ground. 

 Timeliness of Application Essential. 

 I once had a good friend who owned 

 some apple trees but was not a com- 

 mercial orchardist. He once complained 

 that he was about to give up his at- 

 tempts to spray for the control of scab. 

 He had sprayed with the greatest thor- 

 oughness. He had used lime-sulphur. Ik- 

 had used it several times the common 

 strength but without apparent results 

 of any sort. I asked him when he had 

 sprayed. He said, in March. Little 

 wonder that he got no results! I told 

 him briefly what the experienced or- 

 chard men know, that the disease spores 

 arise from the old dead leaves on the 

 ground but cannot attack dormant trees 

 in winter and that no spray applied at 

 that time could either kill the fungus on 

 the ground or protect the foliage and 

 fruit from attack when the spring came 

 on. The next year he gave no dormant 

 spray but just as soon as the cluster 

 buds opened out and the small leaves 

 separated far enough to expose the little 

 cluster of undeveloped blossoms in the 

 center he put on his first application t" 

 protect these parts as they unfolded 

 against the air-borne scab spores. Just 



before bloom, as the buds showed pink, 

 he covered everything again to protect 

 the leaves and flowers which had ex- 

 panded much since the last application. 

 Then, just as the petals dropped off, he 

 sprayed everything again and repeated 

 the work as required to protect newly 

 developed foliage and fruit surfaces 

 until the spring rains were past and 

 the danger of further scab infection 

 was practically over. This time he got 

 his results and he knew the reason. 

 Furthermore, I doubt whether he used 

 much more concentrated lime-sulphur 

 to make up all these applications than 

 he had used the year before in the 

 single useless spray. It was a knowl- 

 edge of the way the disease worked and 

 of how and when to protect the tree 

 that meant success to him. 



Foliage Must Be Covered. 



I have seen orchards of apples run 

 about 60 per cent culls on account of 

 scab just because the owners hoped to 

 control the disease by spraying the 

 fruit alone. They had applied the sprays 

 for the fruit at the right intervals, but 

 scab had been permitted to develop on 

 the leaves and these infected leaves had 

 produced so many myriads of spores 

 that there were probably dozens of 

 spores for every tiny bit of fruit sur- 

 face not actually covered by the spray 

 and wholesale infections on the fruit 

 resulted. 



Tree Tops Often Neglected. 

 Many orchardists get a big surprise 

 along toward late summer when the 

 fruit begins to size and the weighted 

 branches hang low. The early inspec- 

 tions showed little scab on the visible 

 fruit but as the upper branches gradu- 

 ally sagged down and their load of 

 apples came within range of the eye 

 plenty of scab was in evidence. The 

 reason was that the tops had been over- 

 looked and undersprayed. One cannot 

 expect satisfactory protection from 

 scab or worms if the spray does not 

 reach the tops as well as the lower por- 

 tions of the trees. Many orchardists 

 have not yet learned that their trees 

 have reached a size where spraying 

 from a tower is essential. It is ad- 

 mittedly difficult to know just how 

 thoroughly one is covering the upper- 

 most parts of a tree. There is one 



