Winter Maintenance
If you have any stone fruit trees, such as peaches, apricots, and cherries, you may want to prune your trees now. Here at Bella Viva Orchards, we have just finished pruning our organic peach orchard. If you have a good eye, you may have noticed in the picture the shredded brush on the ground. Instead of burning the brush, we are able to leave it on the ground and mow it up, which prevents the release of CO2 into the atmosphere as well as provides nutrients for the trees. Shredding brush is just one of the many steps to keeping this a "sustainable" farm.
If you live where temperatures can dip below freezing you will probably want to wait until early spring to prune your trees. Studies have shown that if a tree is hit by a frost after recently being pruned, the tree will have poor blossom survival and be less resistant to cold weather.
(information on pruning from Virginia Tech)
While there are still no buds on the tree and the tree is dormant, it is a good time to apply a dormant spray. We apply an organic spray of a copper and oil mix. This spray prevents peach leaf curl and San Jose Scale. It also helps prevent fungal disease and over wintering pests, such as mite eggs.
I could not find a good online store for one to purchase organic dormant spray, but you can talk to your local nursery for some pointers where to get it. |
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