If you read the Kocide 3000 label, applying Kocide is in relation to protection of plants from Pseudomonas infection -- this is the culprit for bacterial canker. Pseudomonas has ice nucleation proteins, which allow water to freeze in the plant cell at a higher temperature thereby causing frost injury sooner. When this injury occurs, the bacteria will feed on the nutrients released by the injured plant tissue. Major infection event then ensues... Pseudomonas LOVES this weather we are experiencing -- bacterial populations will be at their highest now as a result. This is why bacterial canker is often referred to as the "cold weather disease." IF you are experiencing bacterial canker in your stone fruit, I'd follow the recommendation for applying Kocide because the Kocide will knock back the bacteria, which is what causes the damage. I believe this is the frost protection they are talking about -- frost occurring due to Psuedomonas being present causing the freezing at hi gher temps.
I don't believe Kocide will offer any other kind of frost protection and **would caution** using it considering it may actually do more harm than good (as far as the copper causing further damage to frozen tissue). In relation to the comments below -- there are a lot of unanswered questions to take into consideration: Was it the same cultivar --could survival have been due to being at different bud stages? What was the elevation for the two sites? History of bacterial canker? And it most likely wasn't repeated...? Kari Peter, Ph.D. Assistant Professor - Tree Fruit Pathology Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology Penn State Fruit Research and Extension Center 290 University Dr., P.O. Box 330 Biglerville, PA 17307-0330 Office: 717-677-6116 Ext. 223 Fax: 717-677-4112 E-mail: ka...@psu.edu Extension: http://extension.psu.edu/plants/tree-fruit Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtreefruit -----Original Message----- From: apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net [mailto:apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net] On Behalf Of Mark & Helen Angermayer Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2016 9:31 PM To: apple-crop@virtualorchard.net Subject: [apple-crop] Kocide 3000 for frost protection Has anyone used Kocide for frost protection effectively. It's labeled for frost protection, but I've never really heard how well it actually works. A friend of mine received an email in which J.B Obermiller w/ NCSU Res. Ser. used it apparently to great effectiveness. According to the email, "Another frost injury protection material you may want to try is Kocide 3000. In 2015 some local peach blocks showed good results using Kocide 3000. Orchard temperatures dropped to 20 deg. Adjacent blocks without Kocide had very little fruit. It was used 24 hrs. prior to frost at 2lbs./ac." The email doesn't say what stage the fruit buds were in, but it sounds like it worked well in that instance. Mark Angermayer Tubby Fruits _______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list apple-crop@virtualorchard.net http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop _______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list apple-crop@virtualorchard.net http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop
