Cedar apple rust: the adventure continues

[tagryn]

...or as a chapter in the book "The $64 Tomato" puts it, "There's No Such Thing As Organic Apples" (referring to the fact that in the Northeast, there's just too many pests and diseases to raise apples without some help). As I mentioned in my garden tour post, our apple trees have a nasty case of cedar apple rust, a consequence of the wet spring we had (compare it to the picture of the same tree last year after a relatively dry spring). And, I'd mentioned that I'd sprayed some Ortho Home Orchard Spray that the previous owners had left in their gardening supplies in an attempt to treat it. Well, it turns out that OHOS "is a mixture of a fungicide (captan) and two insecticides (malathion and methoxychlor)". Unfortunately, this report from Virginia Tech's extension program notes that "Captan does not control powdery mildew or apple rust disease." Great. The same study recommends a fungicide named Spectracide Immunox, giving it a rating of "Excellent" for controlling rust diseases, and I was able to find some at our local Lowes. I really don't like using chemicals, but at this point I'm afraid we're getting to the point that we could lose the tree without help. There's nasty spore pods developing on the underside of the leaves already; yeah, it's bad. So, I've already sprayed once, but it rained shortly afterwards, so I'll be out tomorrow doing it again. sigh. We're definitely not getting any fruit off the trees this year, I'm fighting for even having a chance next year at this point. My mom put the best spin on it: "It is a great hobby, something to do all the time." Yes, indeed. But someday, I would like to actually eat a apple off the trees. Next year'll be year 3 of our having them.