Ruud Kleinpaste: The importance of timing

Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

Last week we discussed the six-month hiatus between noticing troubles with stone fruit and the time of activating prevention.

Peach leaf curl is a rather ugly fungal disease that commences 6 months from now – in spring the leaf curl starts to become obvious on the newly emerged leaves of your peach trees.

Taphrina deformans is the name of the disease that targets peaches and nectarines. The infection begins in autumn when the leaves are falling to the ground – a double dose of copper (a few times, 3 or 4 weeks apart) will stop the fungi from settling on the dormant fruit trees.

Follow up questions I got: Does the copper spray debilitate the peach and nectarine’s buds?

No worries! The buds are going to a dormant phase

Another great example of important timing is winning battles from the Lemon Tree Borer.

These borers are mainly found from Nelson-Blenheim north – they don’t like it too cold.

This rather cool, sizeable, long-horn beetle is a native of our country. It was well-established here thousands of years before Charlotte Kemp introduced oranges into Kerikeri in 1819.

Originally lemon tree borers would tunnel into native trees – a wide range of species became host plants (Mahoe, Kowhai, Coprosma, Manuka, etc).

Exotic trees are also targeted by lemon tree borer. I remember them getting into our olive trees and Wisteria in Auckland – Tamarillo, Elm, Chestnut, Gorse, Apple are just a few of the exotic hosts.

The most important species targeted by this borer are the citrus varieties that are grown commercially and in the backyard, but apple, persimmon, almond, cherry, walnut, and grapes are just as much in danger of damage – these beetles are economic pests!

A damaged branch or trunk is the ultimate spot to lay eggs in. Small nooks and crannies are where the female lemon tree borer would leave her eggs – especially in branches where the bark had been removed or in the pruning cuts.

The small larvae emerge from these eggs and start chewing their way deeper and deeper into the wood. A year or two later these larvae will have grown to a serious size before changing into a pupa, ready to turn into an adult beetle.

This is the importance of timing: adult beetles emerge in spring and are active till late summer. Avoid pruning from winter till early autumn.

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