CONTROL OF PLUM CURCULIO IN TART CHERRY, 2006

The purpose of this trial was to better understand rates and timings of new and existing insecticides for control of PC in tart cherry. The test materials were applied to 17 yr old 'Montmorency' cherry trees at the Trevor Nichols Research Complex in Fennville, MI with an FMC 1029 airblast sprayer calibrated to deliver 100 gpa at 2.5 mph. One-tree plots were arranged in a RCB design with four replications. Tree spacing was 15 x 20 ft, with at least one buffer tree and one buffer row separating all plots. Regular foliar maintenance applications of Orbit, Elite, Flint, Bravo Weatherstick, and Mora-Leaf 20-20-20 were applied separately to the entire orchard. Touchdown and Solicam DF were banded below the trees for weed control. Applications of test materials were made on 15 May (Shuck Split), and 30 May as indicated in the following tables. Evaluations of PC damage were conducted on 23 May, 30 May, and 6 Jun by randomly selecting 100 fruit per replicate and examining for the presence of oviposition and feeding stings. On 6 Jun, all fruit found with oviposition stings were picked in each plot and placed over 1/4 inch hardware cloth to monitor larval emergence. Data are presented as the mean percentage of fruit damaged by oviposition (Table 1) or feeding stings (Table 2), and percent control (Table 3), based on total fruit injury. Percent control was calculated using Abbott’s formula; [1 – (n treated plot / n control )]*100. All data were arcsine square-root transformed prior to statistical analysis with ANOVA and means separation by LSD at P = 0.05. Larval emergence is reported as the percentage of fruit stings per treatment that reared a larva (Table 3).