Directly from their website "RIMpro Cloud Service is an interactive Decision Support System (DSS) for pest and disease management in fruit and wine grape production. For many growers and consultants RIMpro is their essential tool for effective crop protection." We have been using RIMpro for some years now, and although not for everyone - NEWA being a good alternative - it is the most sophisticated and granular DSS out there. Visual presentation of model output - such as the the flagship RIMpro Venturia (apple scab) model - is a particularly good and useful feature of RIMpro. To that end, I present mostly -- with a little explanation - the graphical RIMpro model output for most of the important apple pest model outputs of RIMpro, including Venturia (apple scab) for the 2021 growing season at the UMass Orchard in Belchertown, MA...
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| Apple scab model output based on weather station. Only when the red line (infection value) exceeds 100 is the scab risk high in an otherwise "clean" orchard. Thus, five apple scab infection periods that would need fungicide coverage, probably a combination of protectant and kick-back fungicides. I'd be looking at six sprays maybe? |
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Apple scab model output based on virtual (meteoblue.com) weather data. Whoa, big difference from onsite weather station. Here, nine RIM values exceed 100 (Medium infection risk) which would trigger at least nine fungicide sprays? The virtual weather data appears to over-estimate when it rains (or not).
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| Apple powdery mildew. Not clear on how to interpret, but it looks “bad!” Yes, powdery mildew was an issue this year on susceptible varieties like Cortland and Honeycrisp. Really. Pretty. Bad. |
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| Fire blight. According to this RIMpro output there was one actual fire blight infection on May 18th wherein first visual symptoms should appear about May 25-26. A streptomycin spray then should have resulted in no fire blight. This is confirmed at the UMass Orchard. Plenty of fire blight around elsewhere though, interesting… |
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| Moving on to an early insect, rosy apple aphid, the little buggers. The way I interpret this, nymphs and adults are in abundance and not yet curled up in the foliage during a tight spray window of approximately the last week in April into the first week of May. Two weeks. Indeed, this was overlooked and RAA was a real problem in certain orchard hot spots. Bad, trust me, resulted in many stunted/deformed apples. |
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| Another early insect, apple sawfly. RIMpro shows May 11 as a recommended insecticide application date. This was during the early petal fall period, which can be problematic. Fortunately, sawfly seems to be a significant problem only in loosely managed orchards, in most it is not an economic issues. Of course you can see there is also activity pre-bloom, so a pre-bloom insecticide is also an option, although most would say not a good option. |
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| Codling moth. Pretty straight forward if targeting hatching eggs and L1 larvae with an insecticide, for first generation about June 20, and for second generation (if necessary) in mid-august. |
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| Codling moth using virtual weather data (even though I said I was not going to bring it up again). But, as the codling moth model only uses degree days to calculate CM life cycle, it is much better than when using wetting information in a disease model. Here, the CM insecticide spray windows largely agree with spraying dates using the on-site weather station. |
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| Ah, some horticulture, apple thinning, only available when using the meteoblue weather forecast (virtual data). Pretty busy chart, eh? Let me just point out that app. May 23 and then again on May 27 there were modest carbohydrate deficits, which would have been good chemical thinner application windows if you expected those chemical thinners to work. The growing pollen tube growth/squiggly blue lines also presumably help you time caustic bloom thinner application, but who does that anyways? |
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| Sooty blotch/flyspeck. Who cares? All I know, is that in addition to preventing rots — that is another story this year — you need to be applying fungicide every 10-14 days (assuming it rains an inch or two during that time, no problem with that this year) beginning late June right up to harvest (following PHI’s of course). Watch late varieties in particular with moderate-severe infection events ins September-early October. |
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| Marssonina leaf blotch. An increasingly vexing problem, seen plenty of it at the UMass Orchard beginning in mid-September, Golden Delicious, Mutsu, Fuji, Honeycrisp, Pazazz, and Topaz. Among others. Macs seem pretty immune to it. A fungal disease similar to scab, however, requires season-long control. Getting lax with late season fungicides can cause early defoliation, not sure how bit a problem that is? Can cause fruit spotting, but have not really seen that yet, stay tuned? RIMpro output suggests many infections, indeed that was the case I think… |
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| Yes, we got apple scab in 2021 on unsprayed trees |
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| Fresh apple powdery mildew! |
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| Oh yes, there was fireblight, none at the UMass Orchard, but sporadically/widespread elsewhere! |
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| Rosy apple aphid (RAA) nymph on apple bud in early April |
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| Deformed apples in early July a result of RAA infestation |
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| Marssonina leaf blotch on Evercrisp in late September |
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| By late October (harvest time) these Evercrisp were completely defoliated a result of Marssonina leaf blotch! |
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