1995 Tree-fruit Survey: 

 Disease Management 



Daniel R. Cooley, Roberta Szala, and William M. Coli 

 University of Massachusetts 



In the summer of 1995, the University of Mas- 

 sachusetts Extension Tree Fruit Team surveyed 

 apple growers in the state for their opinions and 

 practices regarding pest management in their apple 

 orchards. This article describes the survey results 

 related to disease management, largely addressing 

 extension programming. 



Growers were asked to what extent they would 

 like to see efforts made concerning chemical con- 

 trol of tree fruit diseases. Table 1 lists the diseases 

 and responses for various sized orchards. Any re- 

 sponse above a 2 indicates that more effort was de- 

 sired, while less than 2 indicates less effort was de- 

 sired. Growers expressed the most interest in get- 

 ting new chemical disease-management information 

 for peach brown rot. Next came four apple diseases, 

 flyspeck, sooty blotch, scab, and fire blight. Finally, 

 there was marginal interest in getting more infor- 

 mation on summer fruit rots, calyx end rot, and re- 

 plant problems. Larger orchards were interested 

 in the Tree-fruit Team placing more emphasis on 

 storage disease management, while medium and 



smaller orchards did not rank storage problems 

 highly. The smallest orchards were most concerned 

 about new information on scab control. 



A similar question asked if the same set of dis- 

 eases should receive more or less effort with regards 

 to biological control (Table 2). The mean response 

 was generally higher than for chemical control, 

 likely meaning that growers felt that more biologi- 

 cal control information is needed for all disease prob- 

 lems. The most emphasized diseases were similar 

 to those for chemical control, with apple scab, fly- 

 speck and sooty blotch ranked most highly. Larger 

 farms ranked replant and storage highly, while 

 smaller orchards found these problems less impor- 

 tant. 



The responses indicated that growers would like 

 to see an increased emphasis placed on developing 

 and learning about new methods of management 

 for peach brown rot, apple scab, flyspeck, sooty 

 blotch, and fire blight. The largest orchards would 

 like more information on management strategies 

 for orchard replant and storage diseases. 



Fruit Notes, Summer, 1996 



