Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University Shenandoah Valley Research Station Steeles Tavern, Virginia 24476 European Red Mite Control on Peach, 1976

The commercial planting at Lovingston, Virginia, in which the tests were conducted, was planted in 1963 and set 15 feet between trees and 22 feet between rows. Due to complete freeze out of buds in March there was no crop and no commercial spraying was done in this orchard in 1976. All treatments were applied randomly in each of three rows. Unsprayed guard trees were left between each treatment tree and an unsprayed guard row was left between each treatment row. All applications were applied with an adjustable hand gun at 250 psi to the point of run off. Sprays were applied on May 12, 1976 and May 20 to single tree plots replicatec 3 times. Mites and eggs from 25 randomly selected leaves/tree were counted microscopically on the dates indicated after brushing from the leaves according to the Henderson-MacBurnie method. Data on the abundance of rust mite, Eriophyidae spp on the treatment trees was collected and analyzed for the August 3 sampling date. Data were tabulated as mites per leaf, or eggs per leaf, and subjected to analysis of variance.