ORCHARD WORK FOR FEBRUARY.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 25 February 1914, Page 3

ORCHARD WORK FOR FEBRUARY.

W. A. Boucher,

Cultivation

During the warm months" of summer the cultivation of the orchard should not be neglected. If bearing trees are to bring their crops to perfection and young trees to maintain vigorous healthy growth, clean cultivation of the soil is essential in order to suppress any growth of weeds and grass and conserve the moisture for the benefit of the trees. CODLIN-MOTH. Most growers of fruit on a commercial basis have for some time past realixed that unless the necessary precautions have been taken considerable infection by codlin-moth and consequent loss of crop will occur during the month of February, in spite of careful and consistent sparying earlier in the season. Still, there are some commercial and many domestic growers who are still under the impression that all danger of moth-infection ceases by the end of January. In order to remove this erroneous idea it may be stated that a season rarely passes when a fairly heavy flight of the moth does not take place towards the middle of the month. Growers are therefore advised to spray with a reliable brand of arsenafce of lead at any rate before the end of the second week of February. It may be , stated as a matter of actual experience that some. growers of apples and pears have commenced spraying early in the season, spraying has been discontinued, with the result that a considerable amount of disgust has been experienced when a fair precentage of the crop has been lost through infection during the month of February; Bitter-rot of the apple (Glomorella Rufomaculans). Some three or four years ago bitter-rot of the apple inflicted considerable and unexpected loss upon growers in some districts, especially in the North. This was due largely to unusual and quite exception climatic conditions, which induced and favoured a sudden and continous attack of the fungug Glomorella rufomaculans. Most of the other fungus diseases that attack growing fruit —such as apple and pear scab, etc.—make their appearance during the early part of the season. Bitter-rot, however, will hardly be noticed until the fruit has commenced to ripen. Fortunately, the climatic conditions throughout New Zealand are usually unfavourable for the development of this disease. Still, it would be as well for growers to keep their crops of apples under careful observation and, should ! bitter-rot make its appearance, spray with the Bordeaux mixture, 4-5-50 formula. Leech. This is a pest that produces brood during the season, and if the weather continues warm and favourable will cause considerable damage to foliage even as late in the season as the month of February, unless the necessary precautions have been taken to prevent this. It is important that the leaves of fruit-trees, weather in bearing or otherwise, should be kept in healthy condition until they drop naturally in autumn or early winter; therefore attack by leech late in the season should not be disregarded.