What did you do in your orchard today?

[CrealCritter]

Canola oil dormant oil recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of conola oil and 1 tablespoon baking soda per gallon of water. Sounds like a good bug egg kill recipe to me. Ingredients easily obtainable at most all grocery stores.

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[murphysranch]

I wonder what Ultra fine canola oil is and how it might be different from store bought canola oil?

 

[CrealCritter]

I wonder what Ultra fine canola oil is and how it might be different from store bought canola oil?

Good question... I'm going to use dollar general clover brand canola oil. I'll see if it says anything about it's fineness on the label. If it doesn't mix with water when I add baking soda and aggiate it. Oil floats on top of water so it should be easy to see if it mixes or not.

If not, then I'll add some Palmolive orginal green which will break the oil down so it will mix in with water.

I like this homemade dormant oil recipe. Can go to the grocery store and get what I need a lot cheaper than buying it otherwise.

I'll make sure I give ratios of the mix and post an update with my results.

Edit...
I don't think the ratios are all that important really, when I read the label of horticulture oil I have on hand. There's a min and max, I sprayed the max yesterday. Along with the max per label of liquid copper.

The trees are dormant so I don't have to be concerned about damage to leaves.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[flowerbug]

but if you break down the oil with detergent aren't you defeating the purpose of using oil to begin with?

 

[CrealCritter]

but if you break down the oil with detergent aren't you defeating the purpose of using oil to begin with?

Another good question . FB was in town, I asked her to pick me up some canola oil. She's a label reader, brought back a gallon of 100% pure canola oil. So that's what I will use.

Crazy plant things? Yep, I'm game.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

but if you break down the oil with detergent aren't you defeating the purpose of using oil to begin with?

So... you kind of brought me back to my chemistry days. Palmolive orginal green doesn't break down oil, it acts as an emulsifier. I know this to be true, because I use it with pure neem oil and water to spray the garden. It doesn't take much palmolive to achive the desired result.

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[CrealCritter]

I'm no chemist by any means. But my suspension is other ingredients are some type of an emulsifier(s). This brand of horticultural oil comes out of the bottle very thick, in glops.

IDK... 80/20 is as good of a place to start as any. 80% being canola oil and 20% being Palmolive orginal green. Although 20% Palmolive orginal green seems very high to me.

We'll see...


Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[murphysranch]

I watched three vids of how to prune apple trees. The best one was from UC Santa Cruz. So I went at it. Got five of them done, and then hubs got the very tall water sprouts cut more than half way down.

The UC Santa Cruz teacher said that if you trim those leaf bud branches (diff from fruit buds) about half way down, you'll get solid MORE leaf growing branch. If you cut it way down, then you'll still get crazy growth, but it won't go as high. If you cut off 1/4 of the leaf branches, you get very modest growth. So I cut them off as much as hubs could reach with extension pruners. As I am shrinking as I age, and since I'm not stable on a stool in mud, its what I needed to do.

The copper oil suspension spray might happen today. Its gonna rain later on tonite, so I want it to have a chance to dry.

 

[murphysranch]

I have two plum trees and a nectarine. They were from Stark's and are only four years old. I'm to hold off on trimming them until just before spring. We might get a sprinkling of our first snow this coming week, and spring is quite a ways off.

The two figs won't be trimmed as they are tiny. And the filberts too.

 

[Mini Horses]

I'm envious of y'all's orchards.