This year marks my first significant harvest for my five year old orchard. Of my 30 apple trees, 26 are fruiting.
We've received more than 10" of rain for June and raining today and forecast for the next few days. What challenges should I expect to face from this kind of excess rain?
I would think the random bitter pit problem that has showed up in my orchard may be increased.
Also, if I wanted to spray for bitter pit and sooty blotch, flyspeck, etc. could I use the same fungicide I sprayed for CAR (Rally 40 WSP)?
On the side, I grafted some scion wood to some of my dwarf trees and just got to taste my first Red Astrachan apple. It was large, big as a grapefruit and beautiful. Very tart, juicy and slightly firm, which is not typical of my other summer apples. I was so impressed, I will be planting several Red Astrachan trees on bud9 this November on my trellis.
Here in the Pacific Northwest we get rain.....but nothing like what you are describing.
Sometimes the fruit and garden forum on the http://www.gardenweb.com website (you have to look for it) has growers in the Eastern U.S. that can share their problems on issues such as these.
While I can't talk much about bitter pit, I can tell you that I work with a couple
Red Astrachan trees in Seattle and the apples are indeed beautifully shaped and quite red....a good early apple great for sauce.
Of course it's great to post here.....this is just another reference I personally find handy.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/f.....ums/fruit/