That seems redundant both spraying and bagging. I just use dormant oil and then Surround at petal fall before bagging. Some years I didn't even get the Surround applied. I've never worried about specks on the apples, since we peel them, but it sounds like you have a worse case of it. I wonder if more pruning to let more air circulate would help?
Northwoodswis

I can't understand why you bag your fruit if you're using Triazide. RI probably doesn't have much different pressure than coastal CT where I manage a few orchards. Two sprays without bagging should adequately protect apples from insects.

Captan should help with the summer fungus- Indar and Flint would reduce the number of sprays though. Unfortunately, neither come in reasonable sized packaging for a home orchard. Mancozeb is much cheaper although you'd need to purchase lifetime supply and respray after heavy rain.

Usually I can stop spraying by around the first week of Aug to get pristine apples although last years monsoon rendered that schedule inadequate. Maybe one more spray in mid-Aug would have done it.

Hi Northwoodswis4 and Harvestman-

Right, normally spraying Triazide and bagging would be redundant. But, what I should have been clearer about is that I do just one spray of Triazide to keep the insects off until the apple is big enough for bagging. After that, once the bags are on, no sense in spraying Triazide.

Right, I would think that additional pruning to help with airflow would help as well, but so far, no luck with that.

Yeah, my search for Indar found it for $211. Cheapest on Flint was $336. Ouch. Bonide makes a Mancozeb for vegetables, etc, but it's not rated for fruit that I see. (Let me know if you know of a brand name I should search for) I'm not sure I'm ready to go to Surround, so it looks like it will be the Captan.

My apples in question have had more SB/FS than {{gwi:65463}} photo from elsewhere on the internet.

Wow Harvestman... You think I could get away with just two sprays of Triazide? I'm already doing one. If so could you recommend the timing of those two sprays? All the work of bagging may not be worth it just to save one spray... and that second spray would help with my aphid problem (As I mentioned in another post, everyone else always says how minor aphid problems are, but I can never get control of them with just Sevin). All this is especially true if I'm going to start mixing in the Captan sprays to prevent SB/FS.

Thanks as always guys,
-Glenn

The timing is at petal fall of latest flowering apples and again 10-14 days later. I've usually used Imidan for this which washes pretty easily in heavy rain but has kick-back which triazide doesn't, but last year my associate used a pyrethroid at many sites and got the same results as did another who used Avaunt which I've used successfully for 2 or 3 years at a couple of sites. This was in spite of lots of rain during cover. No extra sprays used to replaced washed sprays.

Wow, that's great Harvestman. That's basically my immunox schedule, so I'll just mix the Triazicide in. Even though I understood that PC/CM, etc attack the apples in the very early stage, I still figured that I would need some sprays later on in the growing season.

The only caveat to this new and improved plan is the deer. I actually found that the bags actually deterred the deer. For example, since it was my first time having a KG Asian Pear crop, I bagged half of them (the advice was that I wouldn't need bags on them). Anyway, to make a long story short, I lost the unbagged half to the deer.

Anyway, thanks for all the great info.
-Glenn

Wow! That is great to hear about the bags deterring deer. Has anyone else experienced that? Northwoodswis

I will admit, that deer made it through a couple of bagged apples, but most they left alone.

glenn russell:

I use Captan thru the season for fungal control. Sorry but I don't bag. Captan 50 WP is readily available in 8 oz
containers near my area from a chain garden center.

My last batch I bought was on-line from Roses Inc. Tulsa.
They had Captan 50 WP in 3 lb bags. Mark is a great guy
there to deal with. Yes Captan is used by rose growers too!

Well hellllllo Glen: My apples don't seem to get any SB and FS with the bags on, maybe I'm just lucky, good luck. BTW, once CAR season is over I'm not spraying any fungicides.

Topsin and Captan combination, spray mid-July through August, probably into mid-September for the grannies. My Granny Smiths were the worse until I started the summer sprays.

Hi Glenn, I do understand that our 'fog' factor is greater here on the coast of RI than in CT. We are also in a warmer 'micro-climate' than the coast of CT. My apples too had sooty blotch and fly speck last summer. I will use Captan on them for I guess the best preventive measure. I too bag my apples. Mrs. G

helllllo Mike! Yeah, I wish that was the case here. But it's good to know that MrsG47 has the same problem, so it's not just me.

SpartenApple - Yeah, I'm confident the spraying of the Captan (which I already have) will work... I'm just not looking forward to spraying it throughout the season!

Hoeseman - It's good to hear that you had the same experience with GS being a SB/FS magnet. Let me know if you ever found Topsin in small quantities.

MrsG47 - It's good to hear that you too had SB/FS even with bags. Misery loves company!

Thanks all,
-Glenn