TABLE 2. Pesticides applied to apple trees at Belchertown 

 Research Center in 1977. 



Number o£ mites/leaf at peak 

 abundance (July - August) 



Pesticide 



Rate/100 Gal 



Red 

 Mites 



A. 

 fallacis 



Imidan 50wp 

 Guthion SOwp 

 Zolone 3EC 

 Benlate SOwp 

 Check 



1.5 lb 



10 oz . 

 1.5 pts 

 6 oz. 



7.50 

 5.74 

 6.60 

 8.00 



3 .70 



1.48 

 2 .00 

 0.25 

 1.47 

 2.14 



**************** 



APPLE TREE RESPONSE TO SUfD^^ER PRUNING 



W. J. 

 Department 



Lord and D. W. Greene 



of Plant and Soil Sciences 



Summer pruning has been practiced for centuries by European 

 gardeners in order to restrict vegetative growth and to induce the 

 formation of flowering spurs, but has not been widely applied in 

 commercial fruit growing. Considerable research on summer pruning 

 was conducted in the early 1900 's, and it produced widely differing 

 results depending on type of pruning, tree vigor, and cultivar. It 

 is very difficult to evaluate the results of these experiments 

 because these early reports generally described their experiments 

 too vaguely or the treatments were not replicated, but it should be 

 noted that in some of these trials summer pruning failed to suppress 

 vegetative growth, to increase flowering, to induce early bearing, 

 or to increase production. In some of these trials, the summer 

 pruning procedure was similar to that practiced during the dormant 

 season, whereas pruning as practiced by European gardeners to induce 

 fruitfulness involved removal of a portion of the current-season 

 shoot rather than removing whole branches or shoots. Despite all 

 the differences, however, it was generally agreed that summer prun- 

 ing restricted tree growth more than an equivalent amount of prun- 

 ing during dormancy. 



This flurry of research on summer pruning in the early part of 

 the century led to the conclusion by some American pomologists that 



