Kern County

Spider Mite Management in Stone Fruits

Best vs. worse treatment in plum trial 2005

Spider mites can have significant effects on stone fruits, especially in Kern County. Unmanaged populations can completely defoliate both peaches and plums, and cause significant losses in quality and yield of fruit.

Management of spider mites currently centers on the use of biological control with miticide applications as needed.

During the past two years, 7 new miticides have been registered for bearing and or non-bearing use in at least one of the major stone fruit crops. This project started out to collect data that would support the registration of one of these reduced-risk miticides.

Spider mite induced defoliation in plums

Since then it has grown into a larger scale effort to learn about the relative efficacies of each of these miticides, and to collect data on how to best utilize them in an IPM program. We had two very successful trials in areas with sever mite pressure. The data showed the relative effectiveness of each new miticide compared to each other and an untreated control.

Spider Mite in Stone Fruit Documents

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