PMEP Home Page Pesticide Use Information for New York State NAPIAP Survey - Apples and Pears - 1995 Apples & Pears Survey: Demographics

Demographics

Results and Discussion

Thirty-two apple producers and five pear producers filled out a pesticide use survey. For purposes of this survey, the state was divided into two separate geographical areas: Eastern and Western New York State.

Tables 2 and 3 show the number of apple and pear producers and total surveyed acreage. We received usable surveys from 32 apple growers and 5 pear growers. Growers grew apples on 4345 acres that we surveyed. Pears were grown on 148.5 acres. Apples were grown on 2447.7 acres in the eastern part of New York, while 1897.3 acres were grown in the western part of the state. For pears, 136.5 acres were grown in the eastern region while only 12 acres were surveyed in the western region.

Of those acres that were surveyed, the vast majority of growers in the eastern half of New York were growing apples for the fresh market. Eighty-two percent of the total surveyed,, or 2,034.8 acres, were grown for the fresh market. More apples were grown for processing in western New York; 779.3 acres, or 41%, of the total surveyed were grown for the processor market.

Tables 4 and 5 give an itemized list of the varieties of apples and pears grown in the survey areas. Growers reported forty different varieties of apple grown in New York state in 1995. The top five varieties were:

• McIntosh (100% of growers)
• Delicious (93.8% of growers)
• Empire (84.4% of growers)
• Cortland (81.3% of growers)
• Rome (81.3% of growers)

There were some variations in the varieties grown in the eastern part of the state versus western New York. Growers in western New York grew significantly more varieties of apples than growers in eastern New York. Western producers grew 35 varieties while eastern producers grew only 23 varieties. This is notable because 580.4 more acres were surveyed in eastern New York. Perhaps this result is due to the larger number of growers surveyed in western New York (19), than in the eastern part of the state (13).

There are also some differences in individual varieties. For example, only one grower in the east reported R.I. Greening as a variety, while 12 growers reported it in the west.

Table 5 shows the varieties of pears grown in New York State in 1995. It is difficult to say anything significant with only five growers reporting. However, all the growers who responded reported growing Bosc pears, and four out of the five grew Bartlett and Clapp's Favorite. Three out of the five grew Seckel. No conclusions can be made about any regional differences given the fact that only one pear grower responded from the western region, representing twelve acres.

All of the apple growers surveyed reported using at least one of the IPM practices on our list (Table 6). The average satisfaction ranged from a high of 1.6, to a low of 2.7, on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is very satisfied.

The top six IPM practices sorted by number of growers using them are:

• Mowing to control weeds (100% of growers)
• Scouting to determine spray needs (insects) (96.9% of growers)
• Sprayer calibration to reduce spray dosage (90.6% of growers)
• Usage of pesticides not harmful to predators (87.5% of growers)
• Tree-row volume spraying to control disease (84.4% of growers)
• Scouting/innocular estimation to determine spray needs (78.1% of growers)

The top six IPM practices sorted by satisfaction are:

• Sprayer calibration to reduce spray dosage (1.6)
• Scouting/innocular estimation to determine spray needs (1.6)
• Scouting to determine spray needs (insects) (1.8)
• Tree-row volume spraying to control insects (1.8)
• Tree-row volume spraying to control disease (1.8)
• Mowing to control weeds (1.8)

Please note that "Sprayer calibration to reduce spray dosage" was intended to mean that using good calibration practices can reduce overspray.

The fact that there is substantial overlap between the most frequently used practices, and the ones that growers are most satisfied with suggests that growers are doing a good job of identifying which IPM practices work best for them.

The three IPM practices that the fewest number of growers reported using were disease resistant cultivars, mechanical cultivation to control weeds, and mulching to control weeds. The growers that tried disease-resistant cultivars and mulching reported fairly high satisfaction with these practices, but the growers who tried mechanical cultivation gave it the lowest average satisfaction score. This suggests that perhaps more growers should try disease resistant cultivars and mulching to control weeds.

For pear growers, the most commonly reported IPM practices were scouting to determine spray needs and mowing to control weeds, with 100% of growers using each practice (Table 7). On the other hand, none of the pear growers reported growing disease-resistant cultivars, using mechanical cultivation to control weeds, or mulching to control weeds. Those practices were also unpopular with apple growers . Tables 6 and 7, documenting the specific IPM practices used by apple and pear growers, are on the following pages.

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