There are good natural sprays for fruit trees which you can use even if you don’t yet have a problem with insects or fungi. It’s easier to keep your plants disease-free than to try to cure them once they’re infected, and this is where a program using natural sprays can play a big part in keeping your trees, especially fruit trees, fungi and insect free. As a matter of fact, you might consider a spraying routine and using natural sprays for your fruit trees from early spring right on through the summer months.

Every bearing fruit tree should get at least one spraying of a mixture of garden sulfur and horticultural oil early in the spring before leafing occurs in order to kill any overwintering cocoons.

Then throughout the summer, you might want to use the following natural spray recipe on a regular basis in order to keep insects and fungi away from your fruit trees.

My favorite spray is the one suggested by horticulturist and organic gardener Howard Garrett. He says his Wash-Away-Fungi spray packs a punch because it contains four fungus-fighting ingredients, and he is right. I added the Murphy Soap because it helps the spray stick to the leaves and this soap is wood based.

The Wash-Away-Fungi Recipe

In order to create this “Wash-Away-Fungi” recipe, you will need the following:
1-2 cups of compost tea
(Optional if you don’t have any compost which is completely finished)
(If you are spraying edible plants or fruit, do not use tea made from manure compost)
1 tablespoon liquid seaweed (found in plant nurseries)
1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses (the kind you use for cooking)
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon of Murphy soap
1 gallon water
Backpack or pump sprayer

Special Explanations About The Ingredients:

The compost tea, the seaweed, and the molasses not only fight fungal disease in the garden, but all three feed the plant through the leaves (called foliar feeding) especially if you are spraying really early in the morning when the leaf pores are still open.

You needn’t worry about the molasses attracting bugs. I was until I saw how the plants absorb the molasses instantly. Boom it’s gone! The fruit trees just love it!

The acidity of the vinegar helps kill black spot on roses, powdery mildew, brown patch, and other nasty fungi.

Mixing The Ingredients:

It’s easy to do. Just measure and pour the ingredients in the sprayer and mix well.

Hint: I found that if I premix the tablespoon of molasses in a 1/2 cup of very hot water and then pour the whole thing into the sprayer, the molasses mixes better with the rest of the ingredients. I found out the hard way that cold water and molasses don’t mix so well!

If you want your spray to have even more “umph”, add baking soda, potassium bicarbonate, or 1/4 cup garlic tea.

To make garlic tea, liquefy 3 bulbs of garlic in a blender and strain out the solids. Pour the garlic juice into a 1-gallon container and fill with water. Shake the garlic juice well before using.

When And How To Do Your Spraying:

1. Do not blast away or you will damage the leaves. Rather, lightly mist the top and the underside of all the leaves and be sure not to drip vinegar on the soil.

2. Do your spraying very early in the morning for two reasons:

a) If you spray when there’s little or no wind, you avoid back spraying yourself or spraying your neighbor’s plants. Yes, you must get up early in the morning to get your spraying done before the wind starts blowing.

(Certain people may argue that usually the wind dies down after 6 pm; however, your trees have just been through a hot day so need time to recuperate. Also the spray must dry before nightfall, and many times at night the humidity is high.)

b) By spraying early in the morning, you avoid damaging the leaves because you are allowing time for the spray to dry before the sun gets hot.

Once you have finished your spraying, clean your sprayer thoroughly.

If you have some kind of a spraying program using natural sprays that both feed and protect your fruit trees, you should have a lot better luck at keeping your trees healthy and fungus free.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Fungal Diseases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.