"sherwindu" wrote in message
...

Hi Persephone,

Apple growers seem to be divided into two camps, organic and the rest
of
us. I am
not a strict organic guy. I have seen the results of other hobbyist
apple
growers, who try to be organic, and I find the results disappointing.
They
are content with losing a portion of their crop, whereas, I want to
preserve
as much as I can. I use a combination of spraying and organic methods
(sticky
balls, traps, etc.). In my area,
these organic methods are not enough to fully protect the fruit. I don't
feel
my health
is endangered by spraying, when using certain precautions.
One is to stop
spraying a few weeks before harvest to give the sun time to burn off the
chemicals and the wind
and rain to do a similar job. As a secondary precaution, I wash all my
fruit
with a mild
soap solution. Do I remove the chemicals 100 per cent? Probably not, but
the
residue
is very small. The chemicals do not penetrate the skin, so if it still of
concern, you can peel the skin off before eating.

I don't know what you spray with, but as the web sites indicate, some
products are systemic, so you can wash your apples all day long and you
won't get rid of those chemicals. And, sun, wind & rain won't do a thing,
either.

I don't grow fruit trees, but I seem to recall reading about the idea of
using a material similar to floating row cover to completely wrap dwarf
trees. Obviously, this won't address fungus problems, but it should
certainly help with some of the bugs. Have you explored this idea?