MSU Extension MI Ag Ideas to Grow With

 This is the last session of the fruit team's Michigan AG Ideas to Grow With track. Thank you all so much for coming to all of our presentations and things like that. It's been really awesome, really fun. You guys have had lots of really good questions, lots of excellent discussion. We couldn't have this event without the awesome support from greenstone and north-central, SARE, and let's get straight to it. Does anyone know what this is? Jumping straight into a photo? I like it. I thought we would start with photos because they're a little funner, and then get to the other questions and then see if there's any other questions that pop up while we're talking about these. Well, I'm going to throw out straight away that it's a praying mantis, there we go, Yayyy-good guess! That's a praying mantis egg. It is, it's, it's a scale thing. If it were bigger, if, you know, it's hard to tell scale but if you look at the branch, you can tell it's a small branch. So mantis egg cases are typically anywhere from like an inch to two inches depending on the species in length or height. And the wasp nest can be a footer too. So that's, that's a mantis case. That is the best mantis picture I've seen in a while Cheyanne. Isn't it cute! I spent a lot of time looking at praying mantis pictures this morning. It looks like it just bought a house. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's, I don't know if you know that species, Amy, I don't. I know it's not the species you'd find up here. It's really- -No- Looks like it's in California. Yeah there's palm trees. Yeah, I was going to say Florida. I think it's one of the really large ones too. Yeah. It's one of those tropical ones. I just thought it was the cutest. So mantis? Beneficial Yep. Leave it be. Do we want to talk a minute about beneficial insects? We got a lot of questions, maybe we should just get through them Okay. Well, again so beneficial insects I thought that this one would kind of lead into one question that we had. How you can tell the difference between an Asian lady beetle and like a good lady beetle. So I have some pictures, but I was wondering if you guys could talk about the difference and whether you want to like, if you should worry about seeing them or? This is, this gets into an interesting question, interesting topic though, I don't know how you want to address it, Amy, but I I have trouble clearly defining the Asian lady beetle as one thing or another because it is, it is a pest in the winter, it gets into our houses. And as an invasive, it has in some cases displaced other species of native lady beetles. But at the same time it is really good at being a lady beetle that eats a lot of other pests. So it's good at the same time. I think Bill's, I think Bill's, onto something, I think Bill didn't you see, Asian lady beetles feeding on peaches at one time. Was that you? Sorry, you got your mouth full.  Yeah. It was a question whether they were the initiator of the whole. Okay. Yeah, they took advantage of the whole maybe. So they're eating the sugars from an already damaged fruit, yeah. Yeah. So I'm I'm hesitant, still to call them a pest. I mean, they're a nuisance in the house, but I don't know I just opened the windows before the screens are on and wash them all out. And there, I don't know about you guys in your house, but I got a lot of excess bugs in there this year, so I don't know what happened last fall to drive them. It's stink bugs, Leaf-footed pine seed bugs, Lady bugs. You name it. Every kind of bug coming out of the cracks this year Well, I'm thinking it's a couple of things. One, for me, I noticed that we had a really nice warm fall. So the growth, they had an even bigger season to grow, bigger populations. And it was it was a mild winter. So things didn't get frozen off on the corners of your attic or on the eve, so they survived. They survive better. When identifying the Asian lady beetle, the thing you want to look at is that it's called the pronotum. It's that space that looks like the head, but it's actually the, yep, right there. If you look closely that the black stripes look like an H or an M. Some people say M, I like to use H Because the, the first letter of the genus is harm is H. So that's our Harmonia axyridis, so I like to use H. So it's the only one that has that shape here in the US. It's going to be hard to identify the rest of the spots because the asian lady beetle has a huge diversity in how big the spots are on the rest of it, or how orange versus red, the color back, the background color is. But they all have that H or M shape on the pronotum. I think of them as Batman beetles. There you go!  Kind of reminds me of Batman. In the moon. The bat signal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You would like this isn't going to be, The Asian Lady Beetle does pretty much the same thing that this one does? In the field, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So I think they are beneficial all the way in our in our crops, but they're a nuisance in our homes, like any bug or mice or whatever that's not supposed to be there. Does the Ladybug still come into the house? No. No. Because they were because their native they got used to our native habitat and they and weather conditions so they go fully dormant for the winter. The Asian lady beetle is used to a warmer climate, and so what it does in its native range is during periods of cool weather, it tries to find caves or cliff faces or something like that. Hides in nooks and crannies and then comes back out when it's warm. And so that's why they go into houses thinking that they are some of those caves or cliff bases. And then they go further in and then they're stuck in the house during the winter where it's warm, staying alive rather than going dormant, or hibernating or whatever we want to use the term. So awesome. Anything else you guys want to talk about with the Asian Lady Beetle versus the regular ladybug? I have one comment in wine grapes in Ohio. This is becoming a serious problem for the winemaker's, They are becoming a contaminant and this is spoiling the wine. I heard as few as two lady beetles in 50 gallons of wine can taint it to where winemakers can taste it because they have a bad taste or smell to them. If you were to take a lady beetle, like you crush it or squish it a little bit, it creates a defensive compound that's kind of smelly and it can taint the taste. Yeah. So what are they doing' like shaken? I mean, they're inside the cluster when the get harvested. Do they have to like  shake the cluster? What do they do to get, do they have any way to get rid of them? I mean, they are sensitive to some chemicals. So people, but very few people actually do something like that. Usually they, you know, if you mechanically harvest, It's not a problem because they get shaken off the clusters. But for hand, you just have to make sure you shake the clusters as you're picking and just they move readily. So you just have to shake them off. So do the regular lady bugs not make the wine taste bad? Of they all do. They all do, okay. Hmm that's cool. But most of the time the other species don't show up in large enough numbers that it's usually a problem. It's, it's become a problem more recently because of the Asian lady beetle because it'll build such big numbers. Yeah, At that point, the regular one would be going dormant basically, if you're talking like mid-October, late October. Right. Right. Right. So sorry, we can move on, that was a long time on lady beetle. Umm, so the next question that we had from Amy and Mike's session on Monday is, is the pesticide more dangerous than the pest? Ooo. It depends on the pest, I think, and the growing situation. So if you're a commercial grower, and you know, you're dealing with codling moth, the proverbial worm in the apple. You, you can't, you can't sell those for, even some processors won't take apples with worms in them. So if you're in the business to grow apples, you have to grow them for what your market demands. And that might include pesticides, which could include mating disruption, which is very specific to codling moths, so it doesn't have to be dangerous, like a nerve poison. There's a lot of other things we could choose from. Like, if you're in your backyard and you don't mind, you know, cutting out the worms, or you're just going to make applesauce out of them. You know, it's all, it's all relative as to what your, what your end goal is. So I think in blueberries it's be the same. So like none of the diseases are really, are like harmful themselves, but you have to grow blueberries for your market demand, and essentially, like anthracnose fruit rots are a big thing in Michigan and that, and growers for say if they have a bad fruit rot year, they can lose 20 to 30 percent shrinkage. That they'll use that word right? Because basically the quality is not good enough so they can't sell it or it would get demoted significantly in it's grade. And It'd have to be end up with an O level process fruit so I mean, but you could definitely go out if you wanted, I think I got dared at the end of my thesis to eat an anthracnose infected blueberry, and it it wasn't good, but it's not  going to kill you or anything. You're still here. Still here. But there are there are safer fungicides to use though late season as well. Yeah. And I think this question specifically talked about atrazine and its impact on non-target organisms like frogs and so forth. If I remember reading it correctly-I can read the rest of the questions. But of course, those are the-pardon? I can read the rest of the question. if that would be helpful. Nah, I think that's okay. Again, is still relative in how you're using the product. And I just wanted to say one thing I feel like. So I just had to move my office from the front of the building to the back of the building, so it was a good time to purge stuff from files. And I was looking at some old recommendations for pesticides, and, you know from things that were here actually that I inherited from the seventies, none of those are on the list anymore, which is a good thing. Those are those products that had long legs in our environments. You know, the organophosphates and just nasty stuff. And many of our new chemistries are much safer for the environment. They're, they're very specific to our pests. That, that question was particularly about herbicides. And now I do think we have to be careful with herbicides. You know that you're not putting them where they can get into waterways. Those that's responsible IPM, it's a part of IPM. So I think the question, the answer is, a simple answer to that question is, probably the pesticide could be more dangerous than the pest, but if you are trying to make money and earn a living and sustain your fifth, sixth, seventh generation farming institution, you have a different approach to it. But then you get to protect the environment and use things carefully and judiciously. I would also just add quickly it all, it also depends on how you use the pesticide. If you use it according to label and use it appropriately? I would agree. It's when you get off label and use it incorrectly that you have to be more concerned about that nowadays. When you set those labels up, there's so much scientific data that backs up like the residue decline curves and things like that. Yeah. So when you do eats and harvest, you're relatively sure that that pesticide is mostly gone when it gets harvested. Because there's a lot of data that goes into making those labels, I guess. If you are using one of these heavy duty insecticides, you need to have pesticide applicator license. Most of the pesticides that you can buy at the Meijer or Walmart, they are not required to have a pesticide applicator license, and they are somehow more benign than the regular insecticide that we use in agriculture. But again, in order to use any products, you need to read the labeled first. And this is the first thing that you need to know when you go to buy something at a store for any bush that you have. But in blueberries there are some growers that don't like to use insecticides for the backyard, the bushes, but they don't mind to have the apple pie with the little white things in the sauce. So that's okay. One point I would add is that nowadays the risk is in the mixing step for, you concentrated material and you're trying to dilute it. I think having the mass or having them, that's where the care really needs to be taken? Absolutely. Yes. And your eyes, protect your eyes. You only get two of them. So so maybe you guys can comment about either maybe the process of like how, how fast it takes for new chemistry to come to market? And then also about maybe like REIs and like residues. Just a little bit to kind of maybe explain a little bit more how we're protecting the consumer from the chemicals and stuff that we're using? For how to say that the timeline of pesticides, I'm fairly familiar with that. Somewhere between 10 and 30 years to get a new pesticide registered. So it takes ten at the minimum, at the underside of it. That's about the fastest pesticide can fly through. But there are some that were found along time ago. People put them down, worked on him for awhile collecting data. They sat on the shelf and then there's a pesticide group that were discovered in the late nineties that people didn't, and they're now starting to go back to them and look at that. So it can take up to 30 years to make a pesticide. But there's a lot of data that goes into going to end. And the average cost for developing a new pesticide is around 20 to 40 million dollars. Oh no, Carlos, it's Three hundred to five hundred million now. Now?!? For a traditional chemistry where the biologicals are in that $30 million range. And that's why I think we're seeing so many out the biologicals. They are fast-tracked to the system. They don't necessarily have to go through all the human health studies. And same thing with mating disruption or pheromone-base products. Those you can get through registration in as little as three to, three to five years. But there's a very narrow window of what that, what qualifies as a pheromone according to the EPA. So it's, it's very like Amy was mentioning earlier, pheromones are very narrow spectrum, very specific, and have very specific uses. So those are not generally available to the backyard user, but commercial growers will use them a fair bit. Awesome. And there's lots of really scary things on the Internet, like Facebook and stuff like that. So if you ever have any questions about pesticides or anything like that, please reach out to your local extension educators. We're here to help you. And a lot of times things aren't as scary as they seem. Right. What else was I going to say? I don't remember. Everybody ready for the next question? The next question that someone asked was, can you talk about vectors? Which I think also couples pretty well with how do pests or diseases travel? Can we talk about vectors and pests and diseases traveling? Were they, did that question have a specific-it was during the IPM, like your intro to IPM. If I remember correctly. It was during you and Amy's day. I remember the question but I don't remember the contexts. Because you know vectors of human disease, vectors of viruses like aster yellows. Right I guess I didn't know what the context was, but. I just have which talk it was during. I don't have it with a specific. Well, I guess like how would a disease moves in an orchard or a blueberry fields? All right, what are a couple of ways that they- It just depends on what disease you're talking about. So like if  it's a virus, Aphids are generally your main mover of plant viruses within a field. Why do aphids move viruses? They have sucking mouthparts that basically suck in and out using the stylet, their proboscis, or whatever that will suck the phloem back in and out of their mouths. And then some viruses that are really, I'm sorry, I'm not an entomologist, but No you're doing good, you're good. Go for it. But some of them basically will have, have really tight associations with that aphid. The viruses have evolved in that situation. So sometimes the virus can even replicate inside of that aphid, like blueberry shoestring virus for example. Sometimes it's a more short-term thing where it literally virus hangs out on just that, that mouthpart and can really only transmit for like 10 minutes. And it really depends on what system you're talking about for viruses. And also the leafhoppers. Yes, leafhoppers and plant hoppers. They are also vectors of viruses in plants, in woody plants, like in grapes they are the vectors on some of the diseases caused by bacteria. Normally the bacteria is produced inside of the pharynx of the insect and then when they are feeding on the woody plants, they are injecting the bacteria. And then we also have nematodes that could move viruses, too So those are  Nepoviruses, and in particularly fruit crops like blueberries and grapes are well-known to have tobacco at tomato ringspot virus. And those are Nepoviruses, meaning they're vectored by a particular nematode situation and that's, so that's those cool moves. So the short answer though it's viruses, typically move slowly through a field and they slowly, they move down a row rather than across rows typically. And that's typically like the way viruses would move. So in regards to viruses, bugs and nematodes are kind of like the dirty spoon that you're using in all your different soups. Yes. If you use it, it's going to get it in every soup that you use. People are always concerned about pruning, and that is a case-by-case system. So not always does pruning move viruses. Viruses can be mechanically transmitted, but that's not always the case in every system. So sometimes that's well known that yeah viruses can move by, move by people going own the row pruning mechanically, but sometimes that's not the case. Either way, the way to really manage viruses is not necessarily in the field at all. It's to buy clean plant material to begin with. Basically. So. Yep, prevention is a lot easier than management. Yeah. So vector, really vectoring, I mean I typically what I'll advise a grower, if we find some virus that's important in one part of the field and then it's not in the other part. Sometimes I recommend ripping out a small row in the middle just to sort of separate those two fields. And then maybe if you feel like spraying an insecticide to manage that small block. Sure. But at some point some people just let perennial crops kinda get bad with viruses and then they just rip whole row out and start again with clean plant material. It's tuff to manage in the field. Yeah. I think this is the case of the wisdom X-disease in peaches and cherries that we have a program, especially in the Southwest, where some of the varieties have been affected very seriously for the Western X-disease. And this is transmitted by leafhoppers. How would like a fungus travel within a field. So they can move on their own right. They've evolved to eject their spores into the air, get caught up in the air stream and move around. Some like, like, for example, in grapes with sour rot, that's got a tight association with an insect or insects. Maybe many insects, because the grapes are ripe, and basically everyone wants to eat the sugar. And there'll be yeasts, and yeasts are fungi too, and then yeast will attach to those insects and basically be moved throughout the fields. So that could be like your vespids, all your hornets, wasps and those sorts of things. But also your fruit flies and that sort of something. So I guess it just depends. But many of your more sophisticated fungi can move around by themselves. They don't necessarily need a vector to do it. And you have the, I'm sorry Amy, the ambrosia beetles. I think you will have more experience with ambrosia beetles than I, Amy. Um, also we are sometimes our own vectors. Our equipment, our tools, we move things around. You gotta be aware of that as well. So we got a question. Do we have any other comments about how funguses or bugs move things or diseases? We have another question that I think is somewhat relative. Carl asked, some fungicides are barriers, like some captains, Captan. How do other fungicides work? That might be a pretty big question. But could you maybe give us a couple of different examples how fungicides kill or prevent the fungus beside being like a barrier. Is that a Tim question? Okay. I don't know, is it a Tim question? Go for it. I think Tim and Bill would be the top two, but go for it. Alright, I'll be quick and maybe Bill can jump in for tree fruit if needed. But I was just going to say, basically a lot of the older and a lot of the newer chemistry is tend to be contacts and they do tend to be barriers if they're still there, but they do degrade over time and I always like to, before we get into a barrier type stuff, that makes me think of oil, Sometimes I like to just sort of separate fungicides into contacts versus systemic. And that helps me kind of-what is a contact versus a systemic- Let me go there. So basically the older chemistries and some of the newer ones like biologicals tend to be contacts. So basically they'll kill what they touch. But they don't really go into plant tissues. They don't get absorbed by the plant. You're systemics, and you can tell if it's a systemic most of the time if it's got a number on frac code. So the frac code system is how we breakup modes of action. So if it's a numerical number that doesn't have an M next to it, or I guess the only exception is they've been grouped in biologicals of frac 44. So if it's not 44 or have an M in front of it, it's probably at least somewhat systemic and probably somewhat trance laminar in the way it works, things like that. So these are like frac one, two, four, okay? Explain trans laminar. And trans laminar is basically some movement in the plant. So basically, meaning it might not go completely systemically. Like if you apply it to the roots, it might not end up in shoots, but if you apply it to a leaf and it gets just part of the leaf, it'll probably spread through that entire leaf, or spread at least to the other side of the leaf. So some contact will move. I think locally systemic is probably a good way to think about trance laminar, but it won't necessarily move to other plant tissues. So anyway, now if you break those two, That's that's usually how I would what was the rest of the question? I forgot. How do others... Barriers or Captans? So Captan is more of a contact and it's more of an eradicant than it is a barrier. For example, it'll kill it, it touches, but it doesn't last forever. Systemics are the, they get into tissue and in theory are, in some ways systemics tend to be more protectants because they'll be inside the tissue already waiting for a spore to germinate and they will protect a spore from being able to attack. A contact fungicide will kill spores that are on the surface, but not prevent future spores because most of the time contacts don't last very long. So, so Tim, if I have an ongoing infection already, I was going to say apple scab but probably should pick some small fruit pathogen, That's fine. What, how do I, what, what do I spray to get rid of it? I'm being, I'm setting you up. I mean, spray Captan is not a bad one if you already have a really bad infection because it's an eradicant, So in theory it will kill a bad infection that's already there. If you don't want to- Will it kill the lesions that are already present? Or only prevent new ones?- -It'll prevent new ones basically. -I was setting you up- -I know you were. It'll burn out your sore, your infection that you have. Nothing's really that cured with fungicides, even Captan and even your systemics. I just really never try to tell people to spray systemics when you already have a really strong active infection because essentially the systemics are prone to resistance.- -and you're selecting- -Yeah, it's really not a good time to spray a systemic. So, so that term you use of burnout. It drives me crazy because I hear sometimes out in the fruit business and I don't really think you can burn out -No, no, no.- -an infection.- I should say it'll dry, it'll it'll stop the lesion probably from expanding sometimes. That depends how strong the, where the burnout is, but it'll prevent new lesions from forming, and that's that's the main thing. So I'm just trying to drive this home that with diseases, It's much more a preventative approach to managing diseases. Whereas insects, you can monitor and you can actually tolerate some level of insects, depends again on your system and your markets and all that. But you can react to insects, whereas diseases, it's too late once they're already there to react, you have to just live with them until next year. Yeah. That's a good way to put it Amy, I like it. What I'd add is that systemic materials tend to be very almost like a surgeon's blade where they zero in on a single metabolic step. And as a result, it's, it's easier for the pathogen to develop a slightly different way to do a step. And whereas Captan hits multi systems. It's kinda like a sledgehammer, so it's really hard to develop resistance against that. That's a really great analogy. Thank you Bill. If you're curious about resistance, I'm going to post a link to a video  in the chat. Someone also asked if you had any like, if you know of any extension publications that might explain fungicides in slightly simpler terms. Do you know if that exists or is that something we should make? It's hard to explain them in simpler terms sometimes. That's why it's like contact vs. systemics. So that's sort of the best way to start. This video will help explain a little bit how fungicides work, but then it'll talk to you how residence develops. The frac list is quite a long document, so I'm not necessarily- -Could you tell us what FRAC  means? - - Yeah FRAC stands for fungicide resistance action committee. It's about a 70 page document it's put forth and curated every single year. It's how we organize the FRAC codes and how we organize those different fungicides. It explains how they work in a really fundamental level, like what enzymes they're inhibiting. If there's resistance issues. If you want to understand how the numbering system is generated, that lists is really great. But it's kind of boring.  I mean even to someone who loves fungicides it's still... And it's exactly the same thing on the insect side as well, we have the IRAC codes to do the same thing. And basically for the majority of people, it's, you look at that IRAC code and if it is the same number, then you have, you know between two products, It might be, they may be labeled something or they may have different names. But if the numbers are the same, then they act the same way on the insect. And therefore, if you're concerned about developing insecticide resistance or fungicide resistance, in the case of what Tim was describing, you want to use different numbers on, of your, of those codes to rotate between. -So you're saying- Yeah. -Like if it was a FRAC code One it does, it like prevents the skin on the fungus from forming for whatever reason or if it was like an IRAC code One, it prevents the bugs from developing, from like being able to breathe or something like that, like its target, something very specific. Yes. And that number is whatever that thing is, right? Right. Right. Cool. Awesome. So the next is any other comments concerns, questions about that? There's a couple of questions in the chat about this, if you don't mind? So Lily- I'll send you a link to this FRAC list just so you can kinda get a general sense. Some other nice animated things that FRAC puts out that are a little more digestible, that you might find interesting. And the next one was about baking soda, soap, and veggie oil. So there are oils that can be used early season in fruit crops, particularly grapes, that's a common thing before bloom. Kind of as a early shoot type spray when you have kind of a low disease pressure situation. I'm unaware of veggie oil that's labeled. So I I've never really seen vegetable oil be labeled. So I'm not sure I could, yeah. These are, yeah. I see these come up occasionally as more home remedy methods, things when you're talking about backyard level rather than commercial scale. And so I see people use oils or some sort of surfactants like soap to help do similar strategies. Baking soda, I'd have to think about a little bit, but. -Yeah, I've seen sodium bicarb, like Caligreen be applied fairly often as a powdery mildew preventative. That's more mid-season. The veggie oil, again, that's really not, to my knowledge, labeled in commercial production. So it would have to be a backyard use. But we do use oils typically early season. Not for your more critical time periods like bloom, but they can be they can be used in that early season time basis for sure. I think it is important to think about the differences between fungi. Powdery mildew kind of runs along with hyphae and then sends down a hyphae into the tissue and then gets its nutrients through haustoria. Whereas other fungi get in and do their continued growth within the tissue. That's Powdery Mildew is accessible to things that you put on the outside like like baking sodas and oils and things like that. So those other, baking soda doesn't work much. If you have an infection already established. And Bill there is a stat about powdery mildew, about 95 percent of the fungal's mass is actually on the surface of a plant tissue. That's why a lot of this stuff really, yeah, like you said, really works pretty well on it. It irritates it quite a bit because you've killed 95% of it. So next question? Where did Apple Scab come from? Is it an invasive species? Wherever there's apples, there's apple scab. The apple tree is an invasive species sort of. Yeah, Apples came from Kazakhstan. Is that where they're from? I think that's really original apples come from in Middle Asia. So they've done, I heard this once from a speaker years ago that they were doing air samples over the Arctic Circle and they found ASCO spores. The primary scab, apple scab spores, so they're everywhere in the world. That's crazy. Wow. But apples are, you know, they grow apples in a lot of places now, so. So it's really hard to describe them, described scab as something invasive or not at this point, it's it is what it is. So it's not worth trying to identify it one way or another. Right. Okay. A lot of crops are like that, like you know,  vitis vinifera, our favorite wine grape is totally just a cultivated weed. An invasive cultivated weed. Yeah. A weed is just a plant out of place. This of Colonists, all the other human diseases colonists brought. So the next question was, in reference to managing weeds in an apple orchard or Cherry Orchard, spreading pine needles around. I guess this isn't necessarily your guy's thing, but none of you guys are weed people, but pine needles a fair distance around cherries and grapes to manage weeds. I have an idea if no one else has any ideas about why this might work out. I don't see any issues with it. If you got pine needles they make a great mulch. I mean. The only thing I've, I've heard some people be concerned about is if you're using anything that is a conifer, pines, cedars, things like that. They can slightly acidify the soil. So you do have to be a little aware of that, but it depends on how much you're putting on and how quickly it breaks down. So but if you're gonna do pine needles, I would think it's not a matter of just scattering them about. It's like anything else. You gotta put enough out there to completely cover the soil and choke out the seeds for being able to germinate. Right I mean, mulch, any kind of mulch is good around tree fruits and shrubby small fruits as well. You gotta be careful in the fall to maybe pull that away so rodents can't, aren't hidden. I would not leave mulch right up next to the trunk of a fruit tree. Yeah. You don't need much space. I would imagine six inches or so around the, pulling it up six inches or so away, is enough. Yeah. Yeah. You have to be a little bit careful the age the mulch because if it's fairly raw mulch then it, then it has really not a great additive. In small amounts is okay, but- -It can actually steal away your nitrogen in the decomposition process. So. And then other weird things like dog vomit fungus and all those weird slime mold things that can happen too. They don't do anything to your trees, they're just weird. It's whatever you want. I once saw a situation where somebody used a lot of apple pulp as mulch and that was really bad on the trees, actually killing the trees. Big slime wad around the base of the tree from the rotting pulp. Wow. So you could mix that maybe with some bark mulch or something like that to give it a little tilt with some straw or something? Yeah. Yeah. So our next question has to do with some pictures that we got it actually, which is pretty exciting. So someone asked about eastern tent moths, so basic life cycle and the best time to hit them for control. I think you said Eastern. I'm pretty sure this is what we thought was Eastern Tent Moth Not an entomologist. Are those are those the adult Mike? Uh no. That's a Gypsy moth isn't it? That is a gypsy moth. So we have actually two separate species here. So- -and the egg mass is gypsy moth too right? Yep, yeah, it's interesting. We actually have, this is where ID is really important. Because you can have two separate moth species come in that look kind of similar to each other. But they're, they they're different, have different life cycles and would be managed differently if you needed them. It's obvious that one on the left is the Eastern tent caterpillar because you can see the yellow striping along the backs of the caterpillars. Gypsy moth, well one gypsy moths don't really create that webbing, but they also are furry like that, but they don't have those yellow stripes along on the caterpillar backs. But the adult moth there is definitely a gypsy moth. Yes, that's a great picture. It's actually laying eggs. I know I love that picture. And it's the light form, the gypsy moth you'll find that's in two separate forms. That's the white or the very light-colored form. And then there's others that are more of a sandy or a dark khaki. Almost the color of the egg mass. Does that depend on what trees they're feeding, laying on,? Do they adjust? Some moths do. Yeah. Spongy Moth. Yeah, oh yeah yeah sorry. It's called spongy moth. Thank you, Carlos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It has a new name. Yep. Yeah, that's going to be a hard habit to break. I believe in every single one of you. I have not run across any dietary differences causing color morphs. I, I've thought it's been more like that proverbial pepper moths scenario from way back when. It just adjusts to its surrounding. Yeah, You just have different color morphs that come out and the ones that blend in better survive better in that local landscape. Yeah. I thought this was a bone. I was like, ah yes, a bone in a field that makes sense. That is not a bone. So the question, we didn't answer the question yet. We're all entomologists who are excited about bugs, but what's the best time to hit them for control. I loved that word "hit" in the question. Uh-huh. I, well, I guess I'm going to ask you, Amy. How often do you see gypsy moths be a legitimate concern in commercial fruit production? It seems like they're, you know, they're kind of a wave of populations. And so they can be kind of a nuisance, but are they really ever a problem enough to train, to target? Not really, because we're managing for so many other insect pests. So they just, they're not, they're happy in the woods and in the maples and oaks and things around the orchards. But in a backyard, they could feed on apple. It's one of their host, the spongy moth or I'm sorry, actually both of them will feed on it. But yeah, I rarely see them as a problem. They're usually in trees that are unmanaged well. Where like an abandoned orchard or near a wood, wooded area or something like that. Maybe some of them will move into it an orchard or a fruit system, certainly in a backyard, I would think you could see them, but I don't know. At my house, if I see them, I just peel them open and expose them and let the birds have at them and if you only see a few nests, it gives me secret satisfaction to  know the birds will eat them. This is Bill. Yeah, the problem, the problem I had is the tent moth caterpillars were feasting on the 22 vintage sweet lapin cherries. And so my question is, if they're going to come back next year, am I looking to get rid of them as they're approaching the tree stems or is there a better way? Because I do expect to see them back, and I want to grab them or get at them before they have a feast again on a couple of the trees. Would yeah, the Eastern tent caterpillar could probably be more of a concern than the gypsy moth because they can defoliate entire branches and actually get on the fruit and cause problems. The other thing is those webbing really protects those larvae, those caterpillars from insecticides. So that's why Amy was mentioning kind of pulling those webbings open so the birds can get to them. I, when I think of managing these, I think of it, I don't think of it in Orchard settings. Most of the time I've had conversations with homeowners with their trees in their yard and the best option is to spray the heck out of it with a hose with really hard water to open and break apart that webbing. And then the birds will get to the caterpillars that are left. But my understanding is that they, there are egg masses that are laid in the late, in the fall and they'll they'll come out early spring. So I would assume probably somewhere around April or May and start creating this webbing. And so if you can get to them early with some sort of management before the webbing gets too bad. So they overwinter as an adult? No as an egg mass. As an egg ass. Okay. So they're going to be earlier, those eggs. I think your timing is going to be for sweet cherry, you know, probably that pre bloom spray and then a post petal fall spray after-you don't want to spray any insecticides during bloom- Those two timings would probably get that whole egg hatching period so that you would get passed. Because then you'll get them when they're little, you know, when the caterpillars are tiny and before they start making nests because they're so protected when they, once they start making that nest, you have to rip them open and then spray. And that's a lot of work. So yeah, you can use Bt in one of the earliest parts when they are feeding a lot so you will get them. You will get rid of them. But wisely they build the the the web around the mass is quite difficult. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bt. That's a good point, Carlos, That's a good option. You could use that during boom. Because that has no effect on bees, so, oh yeah, I guess you just have to be careful, It's going to be a, probably nearly impossible to find the eggs and the little caterpillars, but just try to keep an eye on them or do some preventative spray. Yeah. I just put in an extension bulletin, not bulletin. Thing that someone wrote about limiting egg masses for Eastern ten caterpillars. So that has some pictures of the Eastern tent caterpillar Egg masses that  if you feel like going an looking for. They're kind of cool. Thanks Cheyenne. Yeah. Well, you guys have any other comments, questions, concerns about eastern tent moths? Not I think we hit it off and we got it all. It's get to them early. If you start seeing webbing, that's when you need to make sure and hit it before the webs are developed. And once they're developed, it can be a bit of a challenge. And I would recommend you Google what what then egg cases look like? They're pretty distinct. They lay them around the stem. So they actually look like that a little bit sometimes I can look at them and think they might be a praying mantis egg case. You know they kind of are foamy like that. So  if you see those, you can cut that whole branch out or just smear him off there and destroy them. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. That was very helpful. Thank you very much. I actually I sent that same picture to that Ask and Expert Program and those those are who came back and told me what they were. But thank you for that information. Sure. Why we're here. We're happy to help. So the next question that we got was talking about spotted wing drosophila traps, or SWD. Where's the best place to get them? Where's the best place to place them? In a vineyard or other situation? I think that the best, the best place to to put the traps is near to the wooded area because at the beginning of the season, most of the overwintering adults are in the wooded area feeding on mushrooms. The liquid from mushrooms and going to flowers and, from there, they start moving back into the, into the field where they start laying their eggs. So you need to get the traps. If you have an orchard like blueberries, raspberries. You need to put at least one trap per acre or one trap for 5 acres. And you can make those traps with food containers, with wholes around and with bait made of sugar and brewer's yeast. Or you can buy the newest directive from the Great Lakes IPM or from other providers. And then you can set them, but you need to send them very early. Because when you let those flies to establish in the field or in your orchard of in your backyard, it's going to be almost impossible to get rid of it. Cheyanne you mentioned a vineyard in your example. Is that actually in the question or not? They said specifically vineyard. So specifically to vineyard, a lot of the trapping hasn't been a lot of SWD. It's been about a third to two thirds. So we get more native Drosophila in vineyards that we've done sampling for. That's mostly Rufus Isaacs work and some of the groups and the team that have looked at that. But I shouldn't say that, there's a big grape phonology aspect to that. So you don't really need to start trapping until you're like at about eight or ten bricks because really the critical spray windows for that, are usually at about somewhere between 12 and 14 bricks, if you're going to try to control the drosophila at all. So I guess what I was trying to say is it's usually a bigger problem and a bunch of other fruit crops well before it's a problem with grapes. So well, to add to that, you know, the issues that you have with Spotted Wing being that the invasive new insect causing this new type of damage is more pronounced in other small fruit. You know blueberries were really not a, not impacted much by Drosophila until spotted wing came along and it's new way of of ovapositing in good sound fruit caused a major issue. Same thing with brambles and cherries. Grapes have not seen that same seriousness of impact change. So spotted wing is not as major concern in grapes as it is in other small fruit. In grapes it's all about damage. So essentially if it gets damaged by vespids, like by wasps or something like that or birds or machines running through the field. Yeah, that's when you really need to be careful of Drosophila because yeah, the weather, hail- -Weather too. Yeah. Powdery mildew. You name it. Any damage all they're just awful and go nuts. Other things tend to create the first damage that then other Drosophila, including spotted wing, come in and take advantage of the cracks and damage that's already there. Yeah. In cherries this is a very serious problem because it's more like, like blueberries. But at the NRC and loads that were not sprayed, like peaches with the soft skin. Long before we found them in blueberries, I was looking at some weird flies that were infested in the fruit when you harvest them. When you were bring them home it would've finally coming out of these aggressive flies and it was Spotted Wing Drosophila. In soft peaches? In soft peaches. Yeah. Interesting. Spotted Wind Drosophila is a pain. It is. It is. But coincidentally enough, It's not really that much of a problem in grapes. Yep. There's a really cool little like, not a video, but like video, I guess it the best they describe it, that Rufus shows about Spotted Wing Drosophila coming into a blueberry field and it always starts along the wooded edges. Yeah. And that's because drosophila overwinter as adults and they start mating and laying eggs as soon as the first fruit are accessible to them. And those early fruit are things in the woods that don't, are not commercial crops. And so that's where they're developing first and they're already building their populations before blueberries start fruiting, as an example. And so they're coming in from those other areas of infestation in the natural areas. So they all traditionally come in from the woods where you have that greater diversity. And they don't usually come in in, in any large numbers until your fruit is already ripe and ready to be infested. I think we have time for one more quick question. Can you use organic copper to fight rust? Is that a Bill question? Could you repeat that please? Can you use organic copper to help combat rust? Well, I think copper is not all that great about a rust material, but I'd have to double-check that. Yeah, are any other organic options for rest management? Sulfur is not all that great. Yeah, you don't have a lot of fungicide options with organic growing. There aren't a lot of fungicide options anyway for rusts are there? The 11s are the best. Zinc, Michael's Ebs, Oh yeah that, too. Did they say what crop or no? I think it was in reference to apples. Apples. So remove, remove the cedar trees. You remove the alternate host. That actually usually works if you can. The scary-looking orange goopy guy. So in blueberries we sometimes have rust too. And that's, it's only in the sites that have have like furs hanging out next to them. Like that's that's the alternate host there. Yeah. It's bad when it's bad, it can defoliate bushes, but usually it's not worth even treating, but it can be bad Some years in certain spots. Well, it's the top of the, bottom of the hour. It's one o'clock. Thank you everyone for coming and joining us. We'll click through... That's what I wanted to talk about. And even though Michigan Ag Ideas to Grow With is over shortly, that doesn't mean that the extension stops existing. If you have any questions about plants or bugs or just other kinds of natural looking things hanging out in your backyard or on your farm. Please reach out to your local extension office or AskExtension.org a wealth of knowledge.