Post sponsored by Welcome to PDX Real Estate Agent, Deb

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Post sponsored by Welcome to PDX Real Estate Agent, Deb 〰️

As the days lengthen, average temperatures rise and plants begin to bloom, so do all the little critters. They want a piece of the abundance that spring stands to offer, too. While completely natural, it can be frustrating to be excited about a delicious piece of fruit from your tree that is finally producing only to realize every single piece has been infested. Do not give up hope! There are a few mindful things you can do to help mitigate pest pressure. You will never be completely free of pests unless you use harsh chemicals that also impact “beneficial” insects. This is where integrated pest management, a method of managing pests that seeks to have little to no negative impact on the environment, comes in. It is important to remember that everything eats and is eaten. In other words, someone’s diet consists of the pests you’re having an issue with. According to the USDA, “less than 1% of insect species are considered harmful”. It is just a matter of giving the beneficial insects the right environment to thrive. With that being said, here are 10 IPM practices you can use in your backyard to help mitigate pest pressure:

Selecting plants that will thrive in Portland, Oregon

The first step of integrated pest management is choosing plants that will thrive in your environment. Plants that are not suited for your environment will have a harder time protecting themselves from pests and the local environment. For example, planting a peach tree or citrus tree in western Oregon will most likely result in a headache for you and a short life for the tree. A lot of peach/nectarine trees end up with fungal diseases, in our damper environment, that require spraying to keep in check. They don’t love our natural environment and that’s okay

Because there are plenty of other fruit trees that do and
They grow very well in eastern Oregon. Figs, persimmons, plums and asian pears tend to do the best here. If you are looking for apple or pear trees make sure to get a disease resistant variety.

2. An annual pruning schedule

Prioritizing getting out to your fruit tree(s) once or twice a year and giving them a good pruning goes a long way in pest management. Pruning can help the tree maintain the weight of the fruit set. Fruit trees will often set too much fruit for them to hold, resulting in cracked/broken limbs. These broken limbs can be a vector for disease through the open wound and also cause more crowding in the canopy as they rarely completely break/fall out of the tree. Pruning to maintain a nice open center, strong structural limbs, a manageable height and cleaning out anything dead/damaged will ensure adequate airflow and sunlight through the canopy while actively maintaining any potential entries for disease. Not only will encouraging sunlight and air flow throughout the canopy minimize fungal issues, it will also increase the quality of the fruit. If you are new to pruning fruit trees, please take care to remain mindful of making clean, correct pruning cuts. Leaving stubs, tears in bark and over pruning can cause more harm than good. We have a winter pruning guide if you are curious as to what kind of cuts you should be making and why. You can also hire our crew for either 1:1 coaching or all of your pruning needs!

Summer pruning with Connecting Canopies interns.

3. Orchard sanitation

A good thing to do every fall/winter is to pick up any fruit tree debris (limbs, leaves and fruit) from around the base of your trees and remove it from your property. I love reusing things and a closed loop but if you are looking to manage fruit tree pests this is a crucial step. The life cycle of certain pests rely on overwintering in the tree debris and by removing the debris, you remove one hot spot for pest activity.

4. Adequate irrigation of trees

Making sure your trees are not under any unnecessary stress can help them better protect themselves from unavoidable stressors. We have an extremely dry summer and making sure your trees are getting adequate water will help strengthen them to handle any pest pressure that may come their way. There are many ways to keep up with your tree's water needs. Drip irrigation, water buckets and a good old watering hose soak are just a few. It could be worth looking into water redistribution DIY projects to help rainfall stay on your property instead of running off. The soil here is pretty heavy in clay and can become hydrophobic when dried out too much.

5. Soil health

Soil is the most important resource we have. The soil food web is an intricate cooperation of multiple microorganisms that play a part in fueling macroorganisms like the plants you and I need to sustain ourselves. Bare soil is unhappy soil. Finding something organic like wood chips or a cover crop to cover your soil will help with adding organic matter over time, effectively building the soil, and increasing water retention. We always recommend removing any grass from underneath your tree to the drip line aka where the canopy of the tree ends. Grass requires a lot of water and will compete with your tree. I would then lay down a nice layer of wood chips out to the drip line. You’ll want to leave about an inch of distance from the trunk of the tree and the wood chips. In order to have living soil, you need plant roots in the soil! A lot of microorganisms actually eat the exudates being released from plant roots and the excrements of those microorganisms are the more readily absorbable forms of nutrients plants uptake from the soil. So, having a few companion plants around to diversify the microorganisms in that area is a good idea.

Note: If you want to take it one step further, consider adding EM-1 (activated or not) to your soil to increase health. You can get it from us at the Spring Pollinator and Pest Prevention Pop Up here.

Note: Plant your companion plants with access to the entire perimeter of the tree in mind for future pruning.

6. Diverse habitat

Companion plants are also an easy way to get some beneficial insects into your backyard. Planting things like yarrow can attract parasitic wasps which eat the very common codling moth. You can plant both yarrow and calendula to attract ladybugs which eat aphids. Lacewings love a variety of nectar rich flowers and eat aphids/mites. Diversify the ecosystem surrounding your trees and watch the magic happen! Need some of those plants this spring? Check out the Sparrowhawk Native Plant Sale, orders are currently open!

Flowers interplanted with fruit trees at Mudbone Grown’s CROP location.

7. Fruit Thinning

This is a time consuming but well worth the effort IPM practice! Thinning out the fruit on your tree is a great way to achieve bigger, tastier fruit that is less likely to have pest/disease damage. All that fruit so close together can create moist dark spaces for fungus to develop and easy traveling for pests between fruit. Codling moth loves to enter fruit where two are touching. Furthermore, fruit thinning can be a great way to protect weaker branches from breaking under the weight of the fruit. Once your fruit is about the size of a marble (1-1.5 inches), pick the best-looking fruit out of the bunch and thin to one fruit for every cluster.

Want more guidance? Watch our website for upcoming workshops and volunteer opportunities!

8. Fruit Bagging

This is another eco-friendly pest management practice. Covering your fruit early enough can block any pests from being able to infiltrate them. You can bag your fruit once it is ½-1 inch in diameter. There are many different bag options to choose from. The humble brown paper bag seems to do the best job. However, the super fine mesh jewelry bags are widely used as well. Rip a little split at the top of the bag, nestle it over your fruit and secure the bag around the fruit with a twist tie or twine. The bags should hold up through rain and wind. Notable: Some fruit may not develop as vibrant a color as they would without the covering. You can remove the bags a few weeks before harvest to allow color to develop fully (especially for red fruit).

Find bags, ties, thinning shears and more at our upcoming Spring Pollinator and Pest Prevention Pop Up here!

Panty hose dipped in kaolin clay as a bagging method.

9. Kaolin Clay spray

Although the above practices will help, sometimes more targeted measures are in order. We see codling moths and apple maggots the most. Establishing best practices like everything written above will help reduce populations of both codling moths and apple maggots. Apple maggots over winter in the soil after fruit that they are growing inside falls to the ground. Kaolin Clay can be very effective at minimizing apple maggot in conjunction with other best practices. I will say you do have to be diligent about reapplying after a rain and as the fruit grows. The entire tree needs to have a coating of the clay so this isn’t effective for larger trees.

10. Trunk banding

Trunk banding for codling moths can be very helpful in conjunction with best practices. Codling Moth like to pupate in the ridges of tree bark. They emerge from fruit as larvae and begin to crawl down the tree looking for a nice cozy spot to pupate. If you tie some cardboard around a few limbs and the base of your tree, the larvae will attempt to pupate in the corrugated cardboard instead of the ridges of your tree. You will want to place your first cardboard band around the trunk of your tree by mid June. Check the cardboard frequently during the growing season (every week or two) and replace as needed. Your last trunk banding should be discarded at the end of October. Trunk banding this year will help decrease codling moth the following year. You are really just trying to disrupt their growth cycle by removing the babies.

Tidbit: There are a few very common fungal diseases that share a host plant with very prominent species of trees here i.e. pear trellis rust (pears and junipers) and cedar pear rust (pear and cedar). The lifecycle is impossible to disrupt so orchard sanitation/removing infected leaves is your best bet in terms of managing the spread.

We are selling a spring care kit to celebrate the end of winter! You can pre-order HERE or visit us in person at Leaven Community on 3/15 around 1 pm. You have the option to choose between items for fruit thinning, fruit bagging, an all-natural probiotic for your soil, mason bees or just get everything!