Table 1. Percent harvested fruit injured by pests in the 

 Conway orchard and on unmanaged apple trees 200-250 yards 

 from the Conway orchard. Data represent mean values of 

 annual samples taken from 1981-2000^. 



Values followed by an asterisk indicate a significant 

 difference from the corresponding value for the 

 Conway orchard at odds of 1 9: 1 . 



in the Conway orchard. 



Comparison of the average level of clean (pest- 

 free) fruit produced in the Conway orchard during 

 1997-2000 with that in eight large Massachusetts 

 commercial apple orchards that practiced basic IPM 

 and were sampled during 1997-2000 showed values of 

 92.8 and 92.6% clean fruit, respectively. These high 

 levels of pest-free fruit stand in stark contrast to 0% 

 clean fruit on Conway unmanaged frees during this 

 same period. They were achieved with annual 

 application of one pre-bloom horticultural oil spray, 

 two insecticide sprays and two fungicide sprays in the 

 Conway orchard compared with an annual average of 

 two pre-bloom horticultural oil sprays, one acaricide 

 spray, seven sprays containing insecticide and nine 

 sprays containing fungicide in the large commercial 

 orchards. Thus, the Conway orchard received pesticide 

 sprays only about one-fourth as often as did large 



Massachusetts commercial apple 

 orchards operated according to first- 

 level EPM guidelines. 



An analysis of input of 

 purchased materials and labor for 

 operation of the Conway orchard 

 from 1 985-89 compared with that for 

 typical large commercial orchards of 

 a neighboring region (eastern New 

 York) during a similar time penod 

 revealed substantially lower input of 

 materials and higher input of labor 

 for operation of the Conway orchard. 

 A similar relationship characterized 

 operation of the Conway orchard 

 relative to large Massachusetts 

 commercial orchards from 1991-00. 

 One advance that would reduce 

 considerably the cost of labor for the 

 Conway orchard would be 

 substitution of reusable pesticide 

 treated wooden spheres for sticky 

 spheres in controlling apple maggot 

 tlies. Refined versions of the former 

 are nearly ready for commercial use, 

 as reported in the 2000 issue of Fruit 

 Notes. 



Ideally, a bottom-up ecologically 

 based approach to management of 

 apple orchard pests would involve 

 no use whatsoever of any pesticide 

 that might harm beneficial relationships among 

 organisms inhabiting the orchard and its environs. Such 

 may be the case (or nearly so) in apple orchards 

 designed and maintained using practices of organic 

 agriculture. Until very recently, it was impractical to 

 implement sustainable commercial apple production 

 in northeastern North America owing largely to 

 inability to suppress plum curculio to a commercially 

 acceptable level without use of a synthetic pesticide 

 (such as phosmet). The recent labeling (in 1999) of 

 kaolin clay as an organically approved material for 

 control of plum curculio and other apple insect pests 

 in the United States now opens the way to a potentially 

 less disruptive ecologically-rooted bottom-up approach 

 to growing apples than the form used here. Because 

 kaolin clay costs about three times more per application 

 than phosmet and requires at least four rather than two 

 applications to achieve plum curculio control, it 



Fruit Notes, Volume 66, 2001 



