FRUIT SEASON

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 287, 7 November 1925, Page 8

FRUIT SEASON

C °LENDID INDICATIONS ‘ locally. s ORCHARD INSTRUCTOR’S VIEWS. A reporter who this morning inter viewed Mr J. W. Whelan, departmental orchard instructor at Palmerston North, was informed that indicatio point to an excellent season tor trmtgrowers, both in the Manawatu an Wairarapa. He expressed the tear that last night’s hailstorms might !ia\o done some damage to early rormea fruits, but commented that tho extent of tho losses would depend upon whether the hail was purely local oi whether it was spread over a considerable area. Cherries would suffer most, he stated. Commenting upon the season’s prospects for the fruitgrowing industry generally, Mr Whelan said: “Indications in the Manawatu and Wairarapa are very promising indeed. Conditions during the winter and the early part of the spring have naturally, been favourable to the growth of fungi diseases, but I find commercial orchards fairly clean. In unsprayed orchards pocket plum and curl leaf are prevalent, but where sprays have been used everything is in good shape. There is little or no black spot in apples and very little in pears. EXPORT MAY BE NECESSARY. “If the fruit sets as it promises to do local growers will have to turn their attention to export to relieve the local market. Wairarapa growers are devoting a deal of attention to export just now.” Touching upon current operations in the orchards as affecting the control of pests, Mr Whelan said that arsenate of lead should already have been applied for the destruction of insect pests. Lime sulphur plus arsenate of lead, with a diluted mixture of milk of lime added, should be next applied, while for leaf hopper on apples the remedy was black leaf 40. “Although there aro some promises of an .extension of commercial orchards, there has been no material expansion of the industry in this district of late,” Mr Whelan informed the reporter, adding: “Quite a number of people, however, are going in for growing berries of all sorts.” “There are indications that this season there will be heavy crops of strawberries, gooseberries, cherries, loganberries, apples and pears. Plums, nectarines and peaches will probably be oil the light side, but generally speaking the orchards will give substantial returns.” WOOLLY APHIS CHECKED. Mr Whelan proceeded to touch briefly upon the striking degree of success attendant upon the introduction by Dr. TiJlyard, of the Cawthron Institute, of a natural enemy of tlie woolly aphis—aphelinus mali. Wherever the aphelinus mali had been released, he stated, and notably in this district, there had been a remarkable diminution in the amount of aphis on the trees and, as the pest used to attack new growth, it was a very serious menace. It was of interest to note just how tlie mali attacked the aphis in such determined fashion. The female of file species of this natural enemy of the pest laid 50 to 80 eggs and deposited each one in the body of an aphis, which was pierced for tlie purpose. The aphis, naturally, was killed, and when tho eggs hatched out the insects continued tlie operation oil such of the aphis as remained, and so the cycle went on. It was just another example of the success attendant upon research work in the direction of lighting diseases in tlie most efficient manner—by employing natural enemies to do the work.