I'm starting to get confused. I have a small orchard of about 100 trees of all different species & varieties. Ages 15 years to 1 year. Every year I try to add about 15 new & different trees. Because there are so many different trees, spraying is a project. Different species...different problems...different spray programs. At least I enjoy it. Orchard is really doing good.

My question...since the trees vary in age, some produce fruit while others have several years to go. For instance, I have several apple trees that are producing fruit and I spray for scab. I also have apple trees just planted and others that are too young to produce for a couple years yet. Should I only spray the producing trees and not spray the trees not producing yet, or should I spray all the trees, spraying the non-producers as preventative spraying? Would spraying non-producers harm the tree or is this just a waste of chemicals? This question applies to all the varieties in the orchard (cherries, pear, peach etc...).

If I was to do this all over I would not have multiple cultivars of fruit trees, I would stick with either pome or stone fruit. Lots of different trees are nice but spraying and pruning all different sort of fruit trees starts becoming a real job. Every cultivar has a different spray program or pruning requirement. Luckily I'm retiring next year.