Look at 20 trees, well scattered throughout the orchard block. On each tree check the leaves of 10 fruit clusters and 10 shoots. (Depending upon how much shoot growth your trees have put on, this will total approximately 160 leaves checked per tree.) Examine the top- and under- surface of each leaf for scab lesions. Keep a count of how many of the leaves have any scab lesions (you don't need to count the number of lesions present).

A general guideline for determining if your primary scab prevention strategy has been successful is finding less than 1% of the leaves infected. (This is not an official threshold level, but rather a general idea of success.) If you do find a high number of infected leaves, please refer to page 15 of the 1996-97 NEAPMG for options on post-primary scab management. If you find that scab has been controlled in your orchard, you can consider switching your focus to summer disease management.

The following information is from printed material and a conversation with a BASF technical representative. The active ingredient in Pyramite is Pyridaben, a material with a different mode of action from existing and previously labeled miticides. This will make Pyramite a valuable addition for resistance management. There should be no cross-resistance in mite populations that have already become resistant to one or more of the other miticides. No more than two applications 30 days apart can be made per year. One application can control mites for 44 days and keep mites under threshold for the rest of the season.

There are no known temperature or pH sensitivity (within reason) issues that will affect Pyramite performance. There are no known phytotoxicity concerns or compatibility issues with other spray materials. However, as a newly introduced material, caution is advised, as there is no way a manufacturer can test all possible tankmix combinations. Pyramite does come in water-soluble PVA plastic bag packaging (such as used for Nova fungicide) that should not be mixed with boron in the spray tank. The material is relatively safe in terms of applicator hazard. The greatest applicator safety concern is inhalation of the dust during mixing. To prevent exposure to the dust the individual 4.4-ounce PVA packets should not be opened.

The reentry interval is 12 hours; the preharvest interval is 25 days. Pyramite is thought to be more detrimental to beneficial arthropods than Omite, but less so than Carzol.

Pyramite is currently only labeled for use against mite species, but the company is looking into its potential for leafminer and leafhopper control. Against mites, the effect is strongest on the nymphs, but also affects adults and possibly eggs. The recommended dosage for apple orchards is 4.4 per acre in at least 100 gallons of water. The label does not specify what TRV sized acre is being referred to (i.e. tree size & row spacing), and so is not helpful for TRV dosage calculations based on dosage per 100 gallons dilute spray. At 4.4 ounces per acre, the cost is approximately $42 per acre. The label says to apply when the "mite population is beginning to build". A Company representative told me that the Extension mite treatment thresholds would be an appropriate guideline for when to use Pyramite. For more information, there is a customer service line at 1-800-874-0081.

It will soon be time to expect the first appearance of these adults (which are flies). Most commercial N.Y. orchards have moderate or erratic pressure from this pest, and monitoring to determine when damaging numbers of them are present can reduce the number of sprays used in the summer with no decrease in fruit quality.

Sticky yellow panels have been in use for over 20 years, and can be very helpful in determining when AM flies are present. These insects emerge from their hibernation sites in the soil from mid-June to early July in New York, and spend the first 7-10 days of their adult life feeding on substances such as aphid honeydew until they are sexually mature. Because honeydew is most likely to be found on foliage, and because the flies see the yellow panel as a "super leaf", they are naturally attracted to it during this early adult stage. A few of these panels hung in an orchard can serve as an early-warning device for growers if there is an AM emergence site nearby.

Many flies pass this period outside of the orchard, however, and then begin searching for fruit only when they are ready to mate and lay eggs. That means this advance warning doesn't always have a chance to take place -- the catch of a single (sexually mature) fly then means that a spray is necessary immediately to adequately protect the fruit. This can translate into an undesirable risk if the traps are not being checked daily, something that is not always possible during a busy summer.

To regain this time advantage, researchers have developed newer traps that have the form of a "super apple" -- large, round, deep red, and sometimes even with the smell of a ripe apple -- in an attempt to catch that first AM fly in the orchard. Because this kind of trap is so much more efficient at detecting AM flies when they are still at relatively low levels in the orchard, the traps can usually be checked twice a week to allow a one- or two-day response period (before spraying) after a catch is recorded, without incurring any risk to the fruit. In fact, research done in Geneva over a number of years indicates that some of these traps work so well, it is possible to use a higher threshold than the old "one fly and spray" guidelines recommended for the panel traps. Specifically, it has been found that sphere-type traps baited with a lure that emits apple volatiles attract AM flies so efficiently that an insecticide cover spray is not required until a threshold of 5 flies per trap is reached.

The recommended practice is to hang three volatile-baited sphere traps in a 10- to 15-acre orchard, on the outside row facing the most probable direction of AM migration (south, or else toward woods or abandoned apple trees). Then, periodically check the traps to get a total number of flies caught; divide this by 3 to get the average catch per trap, and spray when the result is 5 or more. In home apple plantings, these traps can be used to "trap out" local populations of AM flies by attracting any adult female in the tree's vicinity to the sticky surface of the red sphere before it can lay eggs in the fruit. Research done in Massachusetts suggests that this strategy will protect the fruit if one trap is used for every 100-150 apples normally produced by the tree (i.e., a maximum of three to four traps per tree in most cases).

A variety of traps and lures are currently available from commercial suppliers; among them: permanent sphere traps made of wood (from Gemplers Pest Management Supply) or stiff plastic (from Great Lakes IPM or Gemplers Pest Management Supply), disposable sphere traps made of flexible plastic (from Olson), and sphere-plus-panel traps (from Ladd). The disposable traps are cheaper than the others, of course, but only last one season. Ladd traps are very effective at catching flies, but are harder to keep clean, and performed no better than any other sphere trap in field tests. Brush-on stickum is available to facilitate trap setup in the orchard. Apple volatile lures are available from Ladd Industries (septa) and Consep (membranes).

Addresses of these suppliers follow:

By preparing now for the apple maggot season, you can simplify the decisions required to get your apples through the summer in good shape for harvest.