Tent caterpillars

There have been sightings of tiny tent caterpillars in apple trees both in Washington and Oregon. Soon their webbed masses will be more obvious. Links to resources and images can be found at the website.

Robin

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/nurspest/tent_caterpillars.htm

Spittle bugs

First froth found by a consultant with an eye for spit.  Interesting creatures, spittlebugs. They whip up a froth of spittle under which they hide as nymphs and feed to their hearts content. Checking first alerts on these bugs, they've been sighted between 4/26 through 5/15 in 10 of the 11 years of alerts sent out. Consistent little spitters but this year is an outlier, for sure.

Robin

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/nurspest/spittlebugs.htm

3-29-2015

Tree fruits continue to bloom.
The cool weather is good to slow down the tree fruit development some what.  His - 60 and low 38, with cool wet moist weather.  If above 60 degrees, there can be scab infection.

Tree fruits and berries ahead of normal development.  Be aware of frosty nights.

Berries

Haskap - honeyberries are blooming.  Fruit by early May.

The good, the potential and the ugly

 We had a nice quick trip to southern California
 to visit the grand kids, which were delightful.  While
driving we made a lot of observations:

Southern Cal was 85 during the day but got cool down to 45 at night. 
There are a lot of peach, almond, an pistachio trees starting to bloom, in bloom
 or to soon be in bloom.  (In many cases, what we are seeing in Oregon
 is very  close to California conditions across the state)

Many orchards had partial blooms going on, where some trees were
blooming nicely, and others had low bloom?  Different varieties maybe.

Bees were being put out in the orchards, but pretty sparsely.  Issue - if
California is down on bee hives;  plus the orchards are JUST coming
into bloom;  as are the Oregon orchards, there may be a shortage of bee
hives.  If you get bee hives, I would check to see if they are available yet.

This may be of concern for the state's blueberry crop.

Point - a lot of crops in Oregon and California, as of 3-12-2015 are
 coming on and blooming at the same time.  Usually we see a
difference in time.

Valley peach, plum, prune are pre to bloom.  So far, this past week
the cool weather  may have slowed down the bloom just a bit.  The
pears are starting  to show flower clusters, no white year, and apples
 are still amazingly tight bud still.  Get the pruning down ASAP
as well as any apple grafting.

 

Weather = 10 days

Temps ranging from 69-39 with clear nights for 3-5 days, watch
AM temps;    then a couple of days of, maybe some rain. 
IF we do get rain, and temps are above 60, need to control apple
scab.  Most apples are still in tight bud.

Prunes -blooming;  peaches -blooming; pears - swelling to pre white.

People planting peas and different cole crops.  Worst case is we
loose a packet of seeds or a few plants.

Still have March and April with potential frosty weather.

Peonies

Peonies which usually start growing in Mid March and
bloom around the first of April are already forming bloom
 heads.  This indicates we are about three weeks ahead of normal.