Other resources: Fungicide treatment timing and efficacy tables
Phoebe Gordon, Madera and Merced Counties
With bloom season for our temperate orchard crops fast approaching, I want to share a wonderful resource that can help when choosing fungicides and deciding on treatment timings for springtime (and later!) diseases. We’re lucky to have phenomenal plant pathologists at UC Davis and UC Riverside, namely Jim Adascaveg (UCR) and Themis Michailides (UCD). They’ve worked to distill fungicide choices and treatment timings into easy to use tables. If you write pesticide recommendations or just want to improve how you do your job, this document should be on your desk or in your truck.
http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PDF/PMG/fungicideefficacytiming.pdf
They’re simple to use, and contain information on major fruit and nut crops for the state. Simply find the crop you’re interested in, and scroll down to the efficacy tables. You’ll find a list of fungicides that have been tested, as well as their efficacy against common diseases. Below you’ll find an example for almonds. Please note: These tables are not always updated to keep track of fungicides that are registered for your crop or for specific diseases, nor do they contain all registered fungicides. Before you spray, check the label to ensure you are using it in a permissible way. The label is law.
Fungicide efficacy table example for almond. Source: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PDF/PMG/fungicideefficacytiming.pdf
The second part to effective disease control is spraying an effective fungicide at the best possible time for control. This document has you covered there as well! You’ll also find a list of effective times to treat a disease of concern. You don’t need to spay every time you have an effective window, but if you’re wondering how soon past bloom you can protect against brown rot, for example, or you’re hoping to hit multiple diseases and are looking for the best spray timing, this table can help you out (example below).
Example of fungicide treatment timings for almond. Source: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PDF/PMG/fungicideefficacytiming.pdf
Some of these tables are also available on the UC IPM website, for walnut, almond, and pistachio. I hope you find these as useful as I do.