Hope you had a happy Valentine’s Day! I’m sure you had a chocolate cake in the shape of a heart on the sideboard waiting to be enjoyed; a warming fire, definitely in the fireplace, if you are allowed one of those in your neighborhood; and your orchard spray tools have been rinsed three times and put away.
This was the third (and last) treatment for the year for the control of peach leaf curl, aka nectarine curl. Most probably, if you haven’t sprayed a copper based product on these stone fruit trees, you will have a doozy of a crop of peach leaf curl, what with all the rain. On the other hand, because it has been so cold, perhaps the fungus among us will catch pneumonia and die. (Don’t bet the farm on that happening.)
It is important to apply this third treatment “in late dormancy, but not later than two weeks before the first bloom. In very wet years … peach leaf curl fungus produces enormous amounts of inoculum and two applications may be necessary, one in late fall, the other in late winter. To be effective, the final, or only, peach leaf curl control treatment must be accomplished before bud scales open.” – U. C. Agriculture and Natural Resources Publication No. 3331
It is from this reference to fall, winter and early spring that peach growers have learned the general rule to spray at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day. To ignore these treatments is to force your tree to replace diseased leaves time after time, weakening overall health of the tree, possibly causing its early death. No pies, only sighs.
Being a work freak, lends to wondering if I really understand what that word, “inoculum,” means. A real, book dictionary defines it as “the material which introduces a pathogen into a suitable situation for growth.” This leads, of course to the dictionary’s meaning of “pathogen, a causative agent of disease.” There. We are now ready for med school, or, at least an armed tree caregiver.
These remaining weeks of winter offer time to prune the same trees that require spraying. In a perfect world pruning has brought down the tree’s height and thinned its many branches so that it is easier and safer to dormant spray. Alas, perfection is usually not this side of eternity so prune away no matter. With the rain, be sure to take greater care setting your ladder.
My friend Denis commented, “my ladder disappeared one foot further into the dirt when I stepped on it and nearly made me fall.” Over the many years of working from ladders, and I will only use orchard ladders on earth – cement is a very different matter, there are a number of rules.
Always set the single pole directly in front of the weight you will be adding to the ladder – never favoring a side angle. Step up to the first or second rung and shove as hard as you can against that front pole, forcing it to push farther into the soil. If it isn’t jammed onto firm ground, don’t climb until the ground can support you
Always know what step you are on, particularly as you descend. Don’t guess that you have reached the bottom rung. Look first, then step down.
If you are right-handed and you must prune a particularly out-of-reach branch or collect a perfect peach before it falls, wrap your left foot around the left side of the ladder to counterbalance your right side outreach. This may sound foolhardy but it has never failed to keep me safely on the ladder. Southpaws, right foot wrap.
Always, stay at a height in which you are comfortable.
And now, about that cake for Valentine’s Day. You need a recipe for two layers.
Pour batter into two 8-inch cake pans. One must be square while the other is round.
When layers have cooled, cut the round one in half. Set the square one on point and place the half rounds against the angled upper sides of the square, forming a perfect heart shape. Use a fluffy frosting to cover the sides and top. Decorate with small candy hearts. This makes quite a large cake so you might have to arrange it on a couple of layers of strong cardboard, taped together, and then covered with foil.
The good news is that all of this can be accomplished from firm ground, out of the rain, without a ladder.
